March 13 – Football at the top level is a rich man’s ownership game and attracts the richest men in the world. Business magazine Forbes has issued a list of the 11 richest football billionaires from the Forbes Rich List.
The listing [http://www.forbes.com/sites/ricardogeromel/2013/03/12/forbes-starting-lineup-the-11-richest-soccer-billionaires/2/] includes the world’s richest man, Carlos Slim. The 11th richest soccer billionaire is placed 109th on the list of the world’s billionaires.
More than 50 billionaires own stakes in soccer teams and those not rich enough to make it into the top 11 include Florentino Perez of Real Madrid; Dietrich Mateschitz who has stakes in Red Bull Salzburg and New York Red Bulls; Silvio Berlusconi owner of A.C. Milan and Dmitry Rybolovlev owner of AS Monaco.
Prince Alwaleed, who recently made a big fuss over not being included in the Forbes top ten, is currently in talks over a take-over of Swindon Town and will be included amongst the top 11 football billionaires if the deal goes through.
Also not included on the list are royals such as Sheik Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Manchester City owner, and Nasser Al-Khelaifi, PSG president, who are not included because Forbes does not value royal fortunes unless they can clearly see who owns the fortunes.
Here is the list:
1. Carlos Slim Helu (Mexico)
Net worth: $73 Billion.
Shareholder in Club Pachuca, Club Leon (Mexico) and Real Oviedo (Spain)
2. Amancio Ortega (Spain)
Net worth: $57 Billion
Club: Deportivo La Coruna (Spain)
3. George Soros (United States)
Net Worth: $19.2 Billion, down $800 million from last year.
In August 2012 revealed a 7.85% stake in Manchester United (England)
4. Alisher Usmanov (Russia)
Net Worth: $17.6 Billion.
Shareholder in Arsenal Football Club (England)
5. Lakshmi Mittal (India)
Net Worth: $16.5 Billion.
Owns 33% of Queens Park Rangers (England)
6. Rinat Akhmetov (Ukraine)
Net worth: $15.4 billion.
Owner and president of FC Shakhtar Donetsk (Ukraine)
7. François Pinault (France)
Net worth: $15 billion
Owner of Rennes (France)
8. Paul Allen (United States)
Net worth: $15 billion.
Part owner of Seattle Sounders FC (United States)
9. John Fredriksen (Cyprus)
Net worth: $11.5 billion.
Owner of Valerenga (Norway)
10. Roman Abramovitch (Russia)
Net Worth: $10.2 billion.
Owner of Chelsea Football Club (England)
11. Philip Anschutz (United States)
Net Worth: $10 billion.
Owner of Los Angeles Galaxy (United States) through AEG.