Beckham the ref made son Romeo cry

The former footballer, who had his own occasional run-ins with match officials during his playing career, had to step in during a recent training match.

And in an interview for ITV’s Jonathan Ross Show to be broadcast tomorrow, Beckham said he had to penalise his own 11-year-old after he fouled an opponent. He said: “I had to step in to ref one of their games and I kind of didn’t really want to but all the dads were like, ‘well, you know the rules.’ So I took my coat off and I went out there and it was Romeo’s game.

“First half went great, they were winning 3-1. Second half 4-1, 5-1 and then Romeo went to make a tackle in the penalty area, missed the ball and took the young kid down and I had to give a penalty.

“Fortunately, I shouldn’t say fortunately, because they’re 11-year-old kids, but fortunately they missed it. As we were running back... Romeo was jogging behind and he turned around to me and said, ‘I can’t believe you did that to me, Dad.’ And he was crying. It was kind of a lesson for him.”

Beckham said that despite reports linking his children to clubs, they had not signed with any teams.