Beckham pic confuses viewers

SHOWING IT OFF: The photo for Armani featuring David Beckham.

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An Armani underwear ad featuring David Beckham has sent the English tabloids into meltdown, some suggesting the football icon may be smuggling more than a budgie.

"Is that John Darwin's canoe in your pants or are you just pleased to see us?" wondered the Sun, in an editorial headlined Swollenballs.

The editorial, written by BBC football presenter Adrian Chiles, questions why Beckham chose to do the ad in the first place.

"You've got money, status, respect and fame - then someone says: 'Armani want you to do a picture wearing tight white pants with your legs as wide open as the hole in England's defence,' " he wrote.

"Why would you say yes? The only reason is that you have no talent other than to be in daft pictures like this.

" ... As for what's stuffed down there, my guess is a rather soft aubergine."

The Sun then hazarded a few other guesses as to the contents of Beckham's Armani togs, suggesting it might be his son Brooklyn's hamster, Scientology brochures from Tom Cruise, or perhaps a pair of festive baubles.

Fellow tabloid the Daily Star also took a few pot shots at David down under, in an article headlined What the heck is in Beck's kecks?

Suggestions included troubled singer Amy Winehouse - beehive included, Osama Bin Laden, the never found Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the Tardis from Doctor Who or wife Victoria's old breast implants.

The Daily Mail, however, took a rather more serious view of Beckham's foray into the world of underwear marketing, decrying his poster as "gay erotica" and the man himself as "the male equivalent of a Page Three tart".

"But then what else should we expect from the man who, along with his wife, has done as much as any modern celebrity to destroy the value placed by our society on self-respect and self-restraint," questions the tabloid.

" ... what kind of a father - of three boys - exposes himself draped across the world's billboards in his posing pouch, looking like the male equivalent of a Page Three tart?

"Airbrushed and two-dimensional, it is truly an image that reflects the man,"

A little below the belt, perhaps.