BY SIGNING David Beckham, Real Madrid has filled the gap in its global portfolio of star players capable of making a difference to the bottom line.

The potential £25 million price fetched by the England captain may seem knock-down given the competing offer of £30 million from Barcelona, but it will prove a giveaway if Real Madrid exploit him fully in Asia.

The Spanish club has made it a policy of signing a “galictico” every summer to turn its side into the football equivalent of the Harlem Globetrotters. Beckham was the only signing big enough to follow the likes of Ronaldo, the wonder goalscorer from Brazil, and Zinedine Zidane, the genius France playmaker.

With those two, Real already have access to the Latin American and Arab markets — Zidane has Algerian heritage. The part of the world not yet won over to the Real Madrid brand was Asia.

Beckham, 28, is an icon among the world’s most populous countries, including the great untapped potential of China. Revered for his strength, chiselled features and strong family values, he can guarantee any company increased sales simply by putting his face on the adverts.

Castrol, the oil company that is part of the BP empire, would seem to have little association with football. Yet he adorns billboards around the region selling the engine oil lubricant because a survey by Castrol of people in Japan, Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia showed that most of them would buy whichever product Beckham endorsed.

Real Madrid hope to turn this appeal into hard cash. They can expect to win over immediately almost five million of Manchester United’s 16.6 million fans in Asia. A third of the region’s fans support a club because of an individual rather than any deeply-felt team attachment, according to FutureBrand, the design consultancy.

United can expect to lose 2 or 3 per cent of its £170 million brand value. Real claims it made £14 million from selling an extra 480,000 shirts after Zidane signed, an effect likely to be even more explosive with Beckham as he embarks on a week-long tour of Asia not as a United player but a Real one.

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