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Premier League – Football rich list: Abramovich toppled

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

2008 Chelsea Roman Abramovich - 0

Sheikh 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% but renewals will be down by at least 15 or 20%. 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)

TeamTalk / Eurosport

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Written by Israel Saria

For the last 20 years I have been working as a football pundit. This experience has provided me with a very useful insight into football and the opportunity to carry out extensive research into the game including its players, the stadiums, the rules and tactics and I have also been grateful to meet a wide range of people connected to football in the UK, Tanzania, Germany .....

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