Does David Beckham Feel Rejected by Zhemchuzhina Sochi?

Thursday afternoon in Moscow. Minus 15 degrees Celsius. A billboard with David Beckham on it suddenly appears on the wall. ‘We have rejected him’, it says. You rub your eyes. And again. Then you start to wonder what the hell does it mean?!

Well, it’s pretty complicated. Zhemchuzhina Sochi is a small club which played in Premier League from 1993 to 1999, disbanded in 2003, then raised from the ashes and has been promoted to First Division last season. And now they are rejecting world class football stars.

The secret is that Zhemchuzhina are from Sochi, the city of 2014 Winter Olympics. This is there the money is now, even for the football club. They wanted to reach Premier League this season and in that case spent big money on the publicity – but in a very strange way. Zhemchuzhina has bought 8 pages in 8 issues of Sovetsky Sport newspaper for the club promo. They also paid Evgeny Dzichkovsky, Sport Express journalist, to write a book ‘Orange Mood’ about club revival. Now they spam a Russian capital with the Beckham billboard.

And if he’ll want to sue them, there will be more publicity.

Category: Team News