SOCCER Beckham is extremely popular in Japan

A study shows he's the most-liked male foreigner in TV commercials.
TOKYO (AP) -- English soccer star David Beckham is so popular in Japan he can change fashion overnight. Last year, he did it with his tufted, spiky hairdo. These days, the country deferentially calls his shaggy ponytail a "samurai topknot."
Hounded wherever he goes by throngs of shrieking women, Beckham is probably more famous in Japan and across Asia for those ever-changing hairdos and his marriage to a former Spice Girl than for his deft free kicks. He is rapidly turning into Japan's biggest sports marketing icon in years.
Japanese media speculate Beckham will rake in as much as $17 million during an Asian tour this week, when he makes stops in Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand. A recent marketing study in Tokyo found he was the most-liked male foreigner appearing in TV commercials.
"He's a brand -- the Beckham brand," said Noriaki Hishiya, spokesman for Meiji Seika Kaisha, a Tokyo candy-maker that signed Beckham as its poster boy to sell chocolate-covered nuts. "He has that sweet face. That goes well with sweet chocolates."
$41 million deal
The timing of the trip couldn't be better. Beckham and his wife Victoria landed in Tokyo on Wednesday at about the same time news broke on his transfer to Spanish soccer team Real Madrid from England's Manchester United in a $41 million deal.
"If I was going to leave Manchester United you've got to join a club that is massive and this is a dream," Beckham said Thursday in his first comments since leaving Manchester. "I think the Spanish League is one of the best leagues in the world."
Beckham apologized to his new Real Madrid teammates for distractions caused by the transfer, and said he was unhappy over some aspects of the way the deal was handled.
"Of course I think it could have been done a little bit differently," Beckham said of the saga that dragged on for weeks. "I think things went on that, of course, I wouldn't have been happy about."
At the news conference, Beckham declined to say what upset him. Several hours later, he issued a statement saying it was the "timing" of the deal," noting the Spanish League season wasn't over.