Beckham asks airline to pay for his picture

David Beckham has asked a budget airline to donate £10,000 to a children's charity after it used his photograph without permission in a marketing campaign.

Easyjet's adverts featured a picture of the England captain and the "cornrow" plaits hairstyle he sported for the national team's recent match. The tagline stated "Hair today. Gone Tomorrow."

But the footballer's management company, SFX, has written to the airline complaining about the use of the picture without its permission.

A spokesman for Easyjet confirmed SFX had written to the airline asking it to consider a charitable donation to the NSPCC. Toby Nichol, Easyjet's head of Corporate Affairs, said: "They wrote us a very polite, friendly letter asking us to consider a donation. The ad is a play on the rumours about David's move to Madrid and is a bit of light-hearted fun, like the other ads we have run." He added there was "absolutely no threat of legal action".

But a spokesman for the footballer's management company said: "We take a very serious view of this type of activity. We have a standard process of taking legal action when companies use images of our clients without our express permission."

Easyjet have run a variety of satirical topical ads featuring many celebrities - none have been asked for permission.