The Rich List

[Jimbo 175]

Manchester City's hugely wealthy owner Sheik Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan has toppled Roman Abramovich to head British football's rich list.

Sheik Mansour, a member of the royal family of Abu Dhabi, has a personal fortune of £15billion according to the Football Rich List, researched and published by FourFourTwo magazine.

 

The 38-year-old bought City in the summer, while Abramovich, Chelsea's Russian owner, has slipped to third in the list - his wealth is estimated at £7billion and he has been said to have lost over £3billion in the economic downturn.

 

He has also been overtaken in the list by Lakshmi Mittal, the 58-year-old Indian industrialist worth £12.5billion who joined Formula One's Bernie Ecclestone and Flavio Briatore investing in Queen's Park Rangers.

 

David Beckham remains the richest player associated with British football - his personal fortune of £125million being streets ahead of his closest rivals Michael Owen (£40million) and Wayne Rooney (£35million).

Beckham is 38th in the overall list, while England head coach Fabio Capello is at number 73 worth an estimated £25million with a £6million-a-year contract and a £10million private art collection.

 

Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson is at number 78 in the list (£22million) and Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger at number 92 (£14million).

Celtic shareholder Dermot Desmond, the Irish entrepreneur, is the richest person in Scottish football - he is eighth on the list and said to be worth £1.2billion. Rangers chairman Sir David Murray is 19th on the list, worth £600million.

 

Despite the huge fortunes of the wealthiest owners, football finance experts fear British football's bubble may be about to burst.

Professor Tom Cannon told the magazine: 'Season-ticket numbers will probably be down by about 10 per cent but renewals will be down by at least 15 or 20 per cent. That's where the problems will be as you go down the divisions.'

 

 

Rich List Top 20

 

1 Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan (Man City) £15billion

2 Lakshmi Mittal and family (QPR) £12.5bn

3 Roman Abramovich (Chelsea) £7bn

4 Joe Lewis (Tottenham) £2.5bn

5 Bernie and Slavica Ecclestone (QPR) £2.4bn

6 Stanley Kroenke (Arsenal) £2.245bn

7 Alisher Usmanov (Arsenal) £1.5bn

8 Lord Grantchester & the Moores Family (Everton) £1.2bn

8 Dermot Desmond (Celtic) £1.2bn

10 Lord Ashcroft (Watford) £1.1bn

10 Malcolm Glazer and family (Man Utd) £1.1bn

12 Simon Keswick (Cheltenham) £966m

13 Trevor Hemmings (Preston) £900m

14 Mike Ashley (Newcastle) £800m

15 Randy Lerner (Aston Villa) £750m

16 Tom Hicks (Liverpool) £700m

17 The Walker Family (Blackburn) £660m

18 Mohammed Al Fayed (Fulham) £650m

19 Sir David Murray (Rangers) £600m

20 Steve Morgan (Wolves) £400m

 

Top 20 players: (overall position in the main list in brackets)

 

1 David Beckham £125m (38)

2 Michael Owen £40m (56)

3 Wayne Rooney £35m (61)

4 Rio Ferdinand £28m (69)

4 Robbie Fowler £28m (69)

4 Sol Campbell £28m (69)

7 Ryan Giggs £23m (77)

8 Michael Ballack £20m (80)

8 Frank Lampard £20m (80)

10 Steven Gerrard £19m (86)

11 Cristiano Ronaldo £18m (87)

12 John Terry £17m (88)

13 Didier Drogba £15m (89)

14 Nicolas Anelka £14m (92)

14 Damien Duff £14m (92)

16 Dimitar Berbatov £13m (96)

16 Ashley and Cheryl Cole £13m (96)

16 Fernando Torres £13m (96)

19 Emile Heskey £12m (100)

20 Gary Neville £11.75m (101)

[David Kelly 1280]

Explains a lot if he's down over a billion in a year.

[Park Life 71]

He was mever really worth 2 billion, in reality it was 1.2 billion ish.

[ohhh_yeah 2991]

Toon tycoon suffers £50m loss

Published Date: 08 January 2009

 

NEWCASTLE United owner Mike Ashley has suffered a paper loss of around £50m.

 

Ashley, the owner of Sports Direct, who made millions by investing in rival businesses, has suffered a paper loss of about £50m on his 29.9 per cent stake in Blacks Leisure, as the camping and surf shop owner issued a profit warning because of falling sales. Blacks said that its outdoor-wear business was healthy, and that poor trading was confined to its boardwear division.

 

Yesterday the Gazette reported how Ashley had dropped to 14th in British football's rich list after his wealth reportedly halved to £800m.

 

The Toon chief was worth £1.6bn in FourFourTwo magazine's poll last year and sat in fifth place.