Richest footballer & football investor

David Beckham has topped the latest football rich list with an estimated fortune over twice that of his nearest rival, Dennis Bergkamp. FourFourTwo magazine claims the England captain is worth £75million, far outstripping the Arsenal forward who is on £37million and Newcastle striker Michael Owen, who is third on £30million. Wayne Rooney has risen to 20th but, with just £8million to his name, he is a long way short of either of his international team-mates. Roy Keane may be out of a job at the moment but he is unlikely to go short with wealth estimated at £25million. Whatever Beckham's advantages over his peers, it is nothing compared to Roman Abramovich's, who is the clear winner in the football investors rich list. With £10billion, his wealth is all but limitless, and five times that of his nearest rival Joe Lewis, who has stakes in Rangers and Tottenham and is down to his last £2billion. Celtic's Dermot Desmond is a long way behind with £867million in third place while Malcolm Glazer makes his first appearance following his investment in Manchester United. The American is fifth with £735million, just behind Sir Alan Sugar, who retains a stake in Tottenham and is thought to be worth £760million.

Top 20 players

1 David Beckham (Real Madrid) £75m
2 Dennis Bergkamp (Arsenal) £37m
3 Michael Owen (Newcastle) £30m
4 Robbie Fowler (Manchester City) £28m
5 Sol Campbell (Arsenal) £26m
6 Roy Keane (Unattached) £25m
7 Alan Shearer (Newcastle) £22m
8 Rio Ferdinand (Manchester United) £20m
9 Ryan Giggs (Manchester United) £20m
10 Ruud van Nistelrooy (Manchester United) £20m
11 Thierry Henry (Arsenal) £18m
12 Emile Heskey (Birmingham) £11m
13 Didier Drogba (Chelsea) £10m
14 Duncan Ferguson (Everton) £10m
15 Steven Gerrard (Liverpool) £10m
16 Frank Lampard (Chelsea) £10m
17 Freddie Ljungberg (Arsenal) £10m
18 John Terry (Chelsea) £10m
19 Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink (Middlesbrough) £8m
20 Wayne Rooney (Manchester United) £8m

Top 10 investors

1 Roman Abramovich (Chelsea) - oil, industry - £10b
2 Joseph Lewis (Tottenham, Rangers) - finance - £2b
3 Dermot Desmond (Celtic) - finance - £867m
4 Sir Alan Sugar (Tottenham) - electronics - £760m
5 Malcolm Glazer (Manchester United) - investment - £735m
6 Trevor Hemmings (Charlton) - property - £730m
7 Walker family (Blackburn) - steel/airline - £680m
8 David Sullivan (Birmingham) - publishing - £575m
9 David Murray (Rangers) - metals/property - £550m
10 David Gold (Birmingham) - books/erotica - £515m

The above article was taken form the following website.

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=351404&cc=4716

Sigh... If only I was half as rich as some of these people. Bear in mind that these people are not old & dying after they've made their fortune. They're still in the prime of their lives & ready to enjoy the money that they have earned. So nice to be a footballer. You'll get the attention, the glamour, you get paid playing the world's most popular sport & most of all, the money's real good. Why study so hard just to be an engineer & get paid peanuts & shoulder such heavy responsibility? If I design a building, maybe I get paid 10000sgd per month, which means, I'm in charge. So if the building collaspes & someone died when it happened, I go to jail if it's proven that my design is not up to standard or I have been negligent in my calculations. If I'm a footballer & i'm in charge of defense, ie. maybe someone like Rio Ferdinand. I get paid £120,0000. Per week. That's approximately 300,000sgd per week (grosssly underestimated currency conversion), 1.2million sgd per mth. For playing at most 3 matches per week. Each match lasts approximately 93 mins. If I let in a goal & the whole team crumbles, the worst thing that can happen to me, I get to sit on the bench until my contract ends, & I still get paid 1.2 million sgd per month. Muahahaha. Don't you feel like playing football?

Ja neh!!!