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The Games will miss David Beckham. Not because he’s box-to-box office, although good luck to Locog shifting those 1 million unsold tickets. Beckham will be missed because his commitment to the Games is well-noted, helping to bring the show to London.

However much Beckham is perceived as a brand or a celebrity, he’s still a 37-year-old man who loves his football.

He should not be near the England team but then Micah Richards, who has effectively taken his Olympic place according to Stuart Pearce, turned down the opportunity to go on standby for Euro 2012. Beckham still cares.

Beckham will be missed because his relentless passion for his profession would be useful for the youngsters in Pearce’s squad to appreciate at close quarters. He could have contributed on the field as well; the very fact that he was in Pearce’s provisional squad of 35 reflects that he must have had some value.

At the very least, Pearce has handled this poorly. Somebody who has done so much for football on these shores, and for the Olympics, as Beckham deserved to be treated with greater respect. Beckham was typically dignified, hiding his frustration. Class.

The whole debate is all rather surreal for those not in thrall to the five-ringed circus. Football should not be at the Games as it not the pinnacle of the sport. The World Cup is. The rules are weird anyway.

The ability of a coach to select three players aged over 23 immediately renders the competition a hybrid. It would be easier to take Olympic football more seriously if it were the Under-21 World Cup, a real ding-dong of a Fifa spectacle showcasing the next generation.

It would make even more sense from an international footballing perspective if England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales had held a four-way contest to pick one entrant, not this ersatz Team GB.

Those who view the world through the Olympic prism cannot understand that the GB concept is alien to most of the modern football-going fraternity.

International competition is England labouring to Italy at Euro 2012 with 23 million people tuning in. It is Northern Ireland upsetting England at Windsor Park in 2005, Scotland running Brazil so close on a warm Parisian evening at France 98 and Wales defeating Germany at Cardiff Arms Park in 1991.

It is not Team GB versus Senegal. So it is sad Beckham won’t be there. He would have played as if the game actually mattered. The London Olympics will miss this Londoner.