Ruud Gullit thinks Fabio Capello will be relieved not to be taking David Beckham to the World Cup as a player.

Beckham was delighted to be invited by Capello to work with the England squad’s coaching staff in South Africa.

But Gullit reckons the ­Italian is secretly pleased Becks was ruled out of ­appearing at the tournament when he tore his left Achilles tendon whilst playing for AC Milan in March.

Ruud, who skippered the victorious Dutch team at Euro 88 and was also a member of the squad for the 1990 World Cup, said: “It's not a big blow that Beckham is not in the playing squad because of all the publicity surrounding him.

“Capello wants to have a quieter approach. So it could have been an advantage not to have that. Capello doesn't want to focus everything around ­Beckham.

“As a player, Beckham brought something important to the team. It is a blow losing his skills.

“But all the headlines were ‘Is Beckham going to the World Cup?’ I can understand the press interest because it was an issue – it was interesting to write up.

“But Capello didn't want that. Now there is no panic about Beckham.

“I sometimes ask ­myself, ‘Does Capello really think it was bad that Beckham was not in?’ Not because of his skills but because of the attention – and all the things around it.

“That's why the players' wives are not allowed to come. The press needs another icon and they have chosen Rooney to be that.

“Rooney is a different kind of story. The focus all the time before was, ‘Is Beckham fit, can he do it? Can he travel from America? Is it possible?’

“It was not about whether Beckham could play well. It was more about all the things around him. So when he got injured it was, ‘Do we take Beckham as a mascot?’”

Gullit also warned Capello that ­England will not win the World Cup if he fails to stamp out cliques.

In the Kevin Keegan era, players split into cliques when they joined up on ­international duty – but the ex-Chelsea and Newcastle boss insisted there must be no return to the bad old days of the Mancunian-Merseyside rivalry.

He remembers how a Dutch squad featuring Kluivert, Davids and Bergkamp might have won Euro 96.

Instead, a rift emerged, allegedly, between a clique of black players and the rest of the team.

When Keegan ­managed England he was at pains to get the Liverpool and Manchester United factions to mix. “You don't want a rotten apple,” said ­Gullit. “You don't want a clique that is negative. It is like a cancer that spreads out.

“That's the worst thing that can happen to you as a coach.

“It is hard to stop cliques developing. The only way to do it is to get the rotten apples out. Capello is a man who can make tough decisions.

“Players always think they have to play, that they are the best. They don't think about the team as a whole, the big picture.

“You always have people who get along with each other. That's OK.

“But you mustn’t allow a group, say of ­reserves who don’t play, to separate themselves from the main group and become ­negative.”