Sven-Goran Eriksson has revealed he once tried to sign David Beckham for Leicester City - but claims the coup was scuppered by Victoria Beckham.
Eriksson, who was managing Leicester at the time, says he attended a dinner with the Beckhams whilst David was playing for American MLS club LA Galaxy and asked the superstar if he’d consider returning to English football.
But as Becks - who was around 35 at the time - considered the offer, Eriksson’s bubble was burst by Spice Girl Victoria, who asked the former England boss, ‘Sven, can you see me in Leicester?’.
Speaking on the Sacked in the Morning podcast, the 74 year old Swede said: “I tried to sign Beckham for Leicester...
“I asked him at a football event, and he was there with his wife. Before dinner we stood talking to each other.
“I was at Leicester at the time, so I said to him, ‘When your contract finishes in the United States, why don’t you come back to England, sign for Leicester and take us up to the Premier League?’.
“He said, ‘Maybe, yeah’ because he doesn’t want to say no...
“Then Victoria says, ‘Sven, can you see me in Leicester?’ I said, ‘Well, maybe not’.
“Finished discussion about Leicester.”
Eriksson remained manager of Leicester City for around a year, before leaving by mutual consent in October 2011.
He added he had once received a call from the sporting director of Spanish giants Real Madrid, asking if Beckham was ‘a playboy or a professional football player’.
“I told them, ‘You are buying a super professional football player,” Eriksson said. “He is the most famous footballer player in the world. But playboy? Absolutely not.
“But I said, ‘You will have one problem... It will be chaos. Wherever you go with him, reporters will be all over - and it’s very difficult to handle it’.
“[The sporting director] said to me, ‘Sven, we are Real Madrid. We are the biggest club in the world and we always have the best football players in the world’.
“They bought him [from Manchester United ], and one month later he phoned me again and said, ‘You were right, Sven. He is super professional... and it is chaos and we don’t know how to handle it.”
Singer Victoria, 47 and also known as ‘Posh Spice’ from her days with group the Spice Girls, has four children with David, now 46.
