British comedian Joe Lycett tweeted a video of himself allegedly shredding £10,000 on November 13 due to David Beckham taking up Qatar’s offer of partnership.
The 2022 football world cup is being held in Qatar which has raised controversy because – according to usnews.com – “criticisms regarding the multiple violations of human rights in Qatar, especially their treatment of migrant workers and position of LGBTQIA+ issues leading to allegations of sports washing”. This has led many LGBTQIA+ fans to skip the Qatar world cup with fear of hostility due to Qatar’s laws against gay sex and the treatment of LGBTQIA+ citizens. It is due to this controversy that there has been such an uproar within the UK when former England footballer David Beckham accepted an offer of, according to theathletic.com, around £12 million a year to be an ambassador of Qatar.
In reaction to the original offer from Qatar, Joe Lycett publicly said that if David Beckham didn’t end his relationship with Qatar before the first day of the world cup, he would openly shred £10,000 to support LGBTQIA+ citizens in Qatar. So shortly after it was confirmed that David Beckham took on the offer to be an ambassador of Qatar, Joe Lycett tweeted a video of himself shredding £10,000 cash. Many fans were supporting of this however some saw the bigger picture and were quite angry at him for “wasting this amount of money” during the cost-of-living crisis currently here in the Uk.
After all the backlash that Joe received, he came out with another video confirming that he did not in fact shred the £10,000 but shred David Beckham’s former Attitude magazine cover. In the same video he confirmed that he actually donated the £10,000 to LGBTQIA+ charities in the Uk, saying “I would never be so irresponsible, in fact, the 10 grand had already been donated to LBGTQ+ charities before I even pressed send on the initial tweet last week. I never expected to hear from you, it was an empty threat designed to get people talking. In many ways it was like your deal with Qatar David – buls**t from the start.”
Many people have defended the stand-up comic including the Deputy Mayor of London for housing Tom Copley who, according to metro.co.uk, tweeted “totally understand this view that the 10k would’ve been better spent donated to LGBTQ+ charities but this was performance art and it’s done a huge amount to highlight the hypocrisy of those who have taken money from Qatar while claiming to support LGBTQ+ rights. Good work”.
leave us your thoughts on this controversial topic in the comments below!
Sophie Yr9
Boston High School
Recommend0 recommendationsPublished in Entertainment, News, Sport, TV & Film