No pressure on Team GB to select Beckham, says Coe

Reuters: David Beckham will have to earn his place in Britain’s Olympic soccer squad on skill and merit like any other player and can expect no special favours, London 2012 organisers said on Thursday.

Speaking before the 37-year-old former England captain teamed up with a London delegation for the formal handing over of the Olympic flame, LOCOG chairman Seb Coe said there would be no attempt to twist the arm of Team GB manager Stuart Pearce.

“We have put absolutely no pressure on Stuart Pearce at all,” he told reporters, a day after England manager Roy Hodgson named his provisional squad for the European championships in Poland and Ukraine next month.

“Stuart has to pick the team that he thinks will lift that (Olympic) trophy.

I wouldn’t expect any coach to be operating on any other basis, whether its wrestling or Olympic football,” added Coe.

“You can never put pressure on coaches to choose people for any particular reason other than skill and merit.”

No longer a part of England’s international set-up and living in Los Angeles, Beckham has said repeatedly that he wants to play for the first United British soccer team to compete at the Olympics since 1960.