David Beckham
English footballer (born 1975)
Sir David Robert Joseph Beckham ( BEK-əm; born 2 May 1975) is an English former professional footballer, the president and co-owner of Inter Miami CF and co-owner of Salford City F.C.. Primarily a right midfielder and known for his range of passing, crossing ability and set-piece taking, Beckham is considered one of the best players of his generation and one of the greatest set-piece specialists of all time. He won 19 major trophies in his career, and is the only English player to have won a league title in four different countries: England, France, Spain, and the United States.
Beckham's professional club career began with Manchester United, where he made his first-team debut in 1992 at age 17. With United, he won the Premier League title six times, the FA Cup twice, the FA Charity Shield twice, the Intercontinental Cup, and the UEFA Champions League in 1999. He then played four seasons with Real Madrid, winning the La Liga title in his final season with the club. In July 2007, Beckham signed a five-year contract with Major League Soccer club LA Galaxy; it was widely cited as a historic transfer for US football. While a Galaxy player, he spent two loan spells in Italy with AC Milan in 2009 and 2010, and became the first British footballer to play 100 Champions League games. He returned to the Galaxy and won the MLS Cup in 2011 and 2012. Following a four-month stint at Paris Saint-Germain, he retired in May 2013 after a 21-year career.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “David Beckham” is english footballer (born 1975). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through David, Beckham and English, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “english footballer (born 1975)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q10520. VIAF identifies the subject as 95036002. The Library of Congress control number is n98880012. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1975, 1992, 1999 and 2007.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “David Beckham” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.