The 15 richest billionaire football club owners in England — and how they made their fortune

English football has increasingly become a billionaire’s playground.

But it’s not all elusive Russians occupying the upper echelons of the game at the so-called ‘big clubs’ like Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, and Chelsea.

No, there’s some surprising names at the top of the money table and not all of them have brought winning ways with their wealth.

Using the 2017 Sunday Times rich list, Forbes, BBC, Birmingham Mail, and talkSPORT, Business Insider has put together this list of the 15 billionaire football club owners in England.

Here they are in ascending order.

15: Brighton & Hove Albion owner Tony Bloom – net worth: around £1 billion

Enigmatic Bloom took control of Brighton & Hove Albion in 2009 and oversaw promotion into the Premier League in 2017.

A Business Insider feature on Bloom speculated that his net worth could exceed a billion. It is believed he has sunk over £200 million into Brighton, including a £93 million injection so the club could move into a state-of-the-art 30,000 capacity stadium in 2011.

Nicknamed The Lizard, Bloom is a poker legend and even set up the UK’s biggest gambling syndicate StarLizard in the early 2000s, a company believed to make £100 million a year.

Most expensive signing: Shane Duffy – £4.5 million (2016)

Source: Business Insider

14: Bristol City owner Stephen Lansdown – £1.48 billion

Stephen Lansdown is co-founder of FTSE 100 financial services firm Hargreaves Lansdown. More recently, he invested in sport as he is majority shareholder of Bristol Rugby (rugby union), Bristol Flyers (basketball), and Bristol City (football).

Lansdown started Hargreaves Lansdown from his bedroom in 1981. In April 2009 he sold a 4.7% stake in the company for £47.2 million to put toward the costs of redeveloping Bristol City’s stadium, Ashton Gate. The works completed in 2016.

The club currently competes in the Championship.

Most expensive signing: Johnathan Kodjia – £3.25 million (2015)

Source: Sunday Times

13: Fulham owner Shahid Khan – £1.85 billion

Like Stephen Lansdown, Shahid Khan is an all-round sports tycoon as he owns NFL side Jacksonville Jaguars and Championship club Fulham.

Once dubbed ‘the face of the American dream‘ by Forbes in 2012, Khan made his fortune in the automotive and hospitality industries.

Khan bought Fulham from previous owner Mohamed Al Fayed in 2013. It was denied promotion into the Premier League because of an unsuccessful play-off campaign, losing to Reading in a Championship semi-final in May, 2017.

Most expensive signing: Konstantinos Mitroglou – £12.4 million (2014)

Source: Sunday Times

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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