British football’s richest revealed – Poor old Roman on his way down

The excellent FourFour Two magazine has published a list of the top one hundred richest people in British football. Nobody will be surprised to see Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan topping the list, but overall the list does make for interesting reading.

£3 billion loss

In the recent past the richest individual in British football has been Roman Abramovich, but the Chelsea owner is believed to have lost over £3 billion during the current economic problems and has fallen to third place.

Whilst the thirty-eight year old Sheikh has a personal fortune now thought to be more than double that of Abramovich, he will be keeping an eye on those at Championship club Queens Park Rangers. Second on list is Lakshmi Mittal and his family from QPR and his colleagues on the QPR board, Bernie and Slavica Ecclestone are fifth.

Richest club

Manchester City are rightly called the richest club in the world, but when it comes to personal fortunes, unlikely as it seems, Queens Park Rangers are right up there with them.

Other interesting facts from the list include the fact that equal tenth are Manchester United’s Malcolm Glazer and Watford’s Lord Ashcroft. As a Watford fan it is hard to accept that fact when United are arguably the biggest club in the world and Watford are having to sell their best players to survive.

Two of Arsenal’s investors feature in the top ten but Liverpool’s Tom Hicks only makes number sixteen.

Scotland’s big two

Scotland’s big two are in there fighting as well. Dermot Desmond from Celtic is listed at number eight whilst Rangers’ Sir David Murray comes in at nineteenth.

It is also surprising to see people involved with Preston and, particularly Cheltenham Town, feature in the top twenty.

The highest player in the list is inevitably David Beckham. His personal fortune estimated at £125 million sees him enter the rich list in thirty-eighth place.

In total, nineteen players find their way in to the top one hundred. The only names that surprised me in amongst them were Damien Duff at number ninety-two and Emile Heskey at one hundred.

£6 million a year contract

Amongst the managers, England’s Fabio Capello leads the way. I guess that isn’t too surprising with him famously being on a £6 million a year contract. He is number sixty-two whilst Manchester United’s Sir Alex Ferguson comes in at seventy-eight and Arsenal’s Arsene Wenger is number ninety-two.

The top 20 in the FourFour Two football rich list are as follows:

1. Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nayan – Manchester City – £15 billion
2. Lakshmi Mittal and family – QPR – £12.5 billion.
3. Roman Abramovich – Chelsea – £7 billion
4. Joe Lewis – Tottenham Hotspur – £2.5 billion
5. Bernie and Slavica Ecclestone – QPR – £2.4 billion
6. Stanley Kroenke – Arsenal – £2.24 billion
7. Alisher Usmanov – Arsenal – £1.5 billion
8 = Lord Grantchester & The Moores Family – Everton – £1.2 billion
8 = Dermot Desmond – Celtic – £1.2 billion
10= Lord Ashcroft – Watford – £1.1 billion
10= Malcolm Glazer and family – £1.1 billion
12. Simon Keswick – Cheltenham Town – £966 million
13. Trevor Hemmings – Preston North End – £900 million
14. Mike Ashley – Newcastle United – £800 million
15. Randy Lerner – Aston Villa – £750 million
16. Tom Hicks – Liverpool – £700 million
17. The Walker Family – Blackburn Rovers – £660 million
18. Mohammed Al Fayed – Fulham – £650 million
19. Sir David Murray – Glasgow Rangers – £600 million
20. Steve Morgan – Wolverhampton Wanderers – £400 million

The top 20 players in the rich list are as follows:

1. David Beckham – £125M
2. Michael Owen – £40m
3. Wayne Rooney – £35m
4= Rio Ferdinand – £28m
4= Robbie Fowler – £28m
4= Sol Campbell – £28m
7. Ryan Giggs – £23m
8= Michael Ballack – £20m
8= Frank Lampard – £20m
10.Steven Gerrard – £19m
11. Cristiano Ronaldo – £18m
12. John Terry – £17m
13. Didier Drogba – £15m
14= Nicolas Anelka – £14m
14= Damien Duff – £14m
16= Dimitar Berbatov £13m
16= Ashley and Cheryl Cole – £13m
16= Fernando Torres – £13m
19. Emile Heskey – £12m
20. Gary Neville – £11.75m