David Beckham Reveals the Advice He'd Give His Children for the Next 20 Years

David Beckham is on the cover of British GQ‘s October 2019 issue, out on September 6.

On his early goals: “To be honest, all I ever wanted was to be successful as a footballer. Obviously, I always did things outside of the game and outside of my footballing career that were slightly different at the time. I think it’s more acceptable now to do some of the things that I did, some of the covers, some of the photo shoots, some of the sponsorships, but I think my focus back then was to just win trophies, be successful with Manchester United and never leave United. Anything outside of the game was just a bonus.”

On when he started focusing on his future after football: “I think the change happened when I started seeing things differently on the business side and largely because I was enjoying it a lot more. Consequently, I started to focus and then started looking towards the end of my career and what I was going to do, setting up a team and at some point owning my own team and owning my own office and being able to actually control everything that was going on in my world. I was probably in my late twenties, early thirties when I started to readjust. And it looked very different from when I was 21.”

On his advice for his children: “To work hard, simple as that. I tell the kids they have to make choices, sometimes give things up. If your friends are going out on a Friday night, maybe you can’t. Maybe you’ve got tennis practice the next day or you’re in the studio singing, like Cruz, or you’ve got a shoot, like Brooklyn. That’s where your focus needs to be.”

For more from David, head to gq-magazine.co-uk.