David Beckham Academy

The David Beckham Academy was a football school founded by England international David Beckham in 2005. In 2009 it operated in two locations: in London, United Kingdom, and in Los Angeles, California, United States. The academy pulled out of the London site at the end of the lease in October 2009, and the California branch closed soon after.

Further Academy sites were planned at Cabo São Roque near Natal, Brazil, and in Asia. Consideration was also given in 2007 to opening an Academy in Manchester.

The Academy is said to have been inspired by Beckham's attendance as a boy at the Bobby Charlton Soccer School. Wanting to give later generations of children the same experience, he put his name to two facilities in 2005.

The Academy in London was situated on the Greenwich Peninsula in east Greenwich, close to The O₂ and North Greenwich tube station. Its temporary building was opened on 28 November 2005, with backing from the Anschutz Entertainment Group and sponsorship from Volkswagen Group and Adidas. Its indoor arena housed two full-sized, artificially turfed pitches, alongside an education and administration centre, and a sports medical centre. Its "likely" closure was announced on 27 November 2009, replaced by a mobile academy which could travel around the UK and further afield. Despite the millionaire player's backing, the London Academy's closure included redundancies among coaching and support staff, and deprived hundreds of children (including Beckham's niece and two nephews) from east and south-east London of their football training.

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