Wolves owner at 20 in football’s rich list

Wednesday 7th January 2009, 11:04AM GMT.

steve-morgan.jpegWolves owner Steve Morgan is number 20 in Britain’s football rich list.

Morgan, said to be worth £400m, is just behind Villa’s American supremo Randy Learner who is at number 15 with an estimated fortune of £750m.

But according to the Football Rich List, researched and published by FourFourTwo magazine, both are a long way behind Manchester City’s Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan who is number one with a £15 billion fortune.

He has toppled Roman Abramovich to head British football’s wealthy. Sheikh Mansour, aged 38 and a member of the royal family of Abu Dhabi, bought City in the summer.

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 coach Fabio Capello is at number 73 worth an estimated £25million with a £6million-a-year contract and £10million art collection.

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

Celtic shareholder Der-mot Desmond is the richest person in Scottish football – he is eighth and said to be worth £1.2billion.

Despite the huge fortunes finance experts fear British football’s bubble may be about to burst.

Professor Tom Cannon said: “Season-ticket num-bers 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.”



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