Forbes has a story on billionaire soccer owners that is worth the read. Also mentions the reported rumors of Anschutz and whether or not he will be buying Newcastle. Make sure you check out the gallery of billionaire soccer owners. Lastly, did you know that QPR is owned not only by Flavio Briatore and Bernie Ecclestone, but also by Lakshmi Mittal! All I have to say about that is wow…
Check the story here.
Time to shed a few tears for these guys, right?
Liverpool owner Tom Hicks has 350 million pounds due to the banks in January and everybody is getting very nervous.
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is looking to borrow $350 million by December 1st for cost overruns at “JerryWorld” New Cowboys Stadium.
Perhaps FC Dallas owner Clark Hunt is wise to stay away from Newcastle at this point.
Maverick owner Mark Cuban can’t get the Chicago Cubs to take his money.
Image via Daylife
The “2018 World Cup Bribery Wars” heat up, as Australian billionaire Frank Lowry joins the FIFA 2010 Organizing Committee comprised of 31 fatcats executives who will also pick the 2018 host country. No Englishmen are on this committee, which probably sinks their chances. Lowry himself has no soccer experience, but that shouldn’t matter since he is the wealthiest person in Australia.
Bill Archer at Bigsoccer has the full story with multiple links, including Sepp Blatter, Jack Warner and Mohammed bin Hammam’s inevitable roles.
Image via Transparencyinsport
We have posted a lot on here about Roman Abramovich and how he likes to spend his money. From football, to art, real estate to mega yachts, Abramovich knows how to spend some serious scratch. Looks like some of his free spending ways might start to slow though with reports that the gloabl economic crisis has wiped $20 billion from his personal net worth! Yes, that is $20 billion…gone. It is reported he is still worth an estimated $3.5 billion, but that is a serious amount of evaporated money. At what point will this start to have an effect on the type of money he is putting into Chelsea? You can’t lose that kind of money without taking a hard look at all of your investments.
Oh, and according to Bloomberg, Russian billionaires “have lost more than $230 billion in five months.”Wowzers…
Look there is a reason why some guys make a gagillion dollars in their lifetime. This is innovation… Remember back to the last time you got a little bit hammered and then started running through you cell phone at 1.42am which resulted in you sending about 10 text messages and 10 emails, hoping to get just one response from a lovely. You wake up the next day, pick your phone off the floor, and then you think to yourself, “… no … no, please tell me i didn’t do that again last night.” Well the folks at google are going help you save the embarrassment next time with a little app called Mail Goggles. What is mail goggles you ask? I say it genius, the google blog says this:
When you enable Mail Goggles, it will check that you’re really sure you want to send that late night Friday email. And what better way to check than by making you solve a few simple math problems after you click send to verify you’re in the right state of mind?
You think you can solve the above equations, they seem easy enough right… How about after you have slammed 6 Stella’s and a couple shots of Jack? This is awesome! I love that it works for email so you can’t drop a Jerry Maguire, now we just need it to work on text messages!
Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich’s new yacht, The Eclipse, will soon be the world’s largest when completed (at 555 feet, 2/3rds the length of the Titanic) and will cost $350 million dollars. The Eclipse will also come with a military grade anti-ballistic missile defense system and armor plating surrounding the bridge and Abramovich’s master suite, as well as bullet-proof windows. There will also be a submarine that can be launched underwater and dive to a depth of 160 ft. that doubles as an escape pod, as well as two helicopter pads.
Reports of the yacht being stored in a giant mid-ocean lair which rises from the sea are unconfirmed…
[Luxist]
Image via Planteagadget
Numero uno is FIFA’s president Joseph Blatter, and they give a great quote from Sepp:
“FIFA is like the United Nations but it has more members and is more powerful”
Six of the top ten most powerful global figures have soccer ties including Becks clocking in at No. 5, Roman Abramovic at No. 6, and Cristiano at 7. Herbert Hanier the president of Adidas is No. 4 and Michel Platini UEFA president is 8. Click on this link for the slideshow and complete coverage from Business Week.
photo. getty images
I.Shouldve.Played.Soccer
What would you do if you were the sixth richest person on the planet with an estimated fortune of $42 b-b-b-b-billion? Well if you are Anil Ambani and you want to keep up with the latest billionaire hobby, you look at buying a team in the English Premier League. Word around the campfire is that Ambani has his eyes set on taking over Everton. It’s no secret that Kenwright is looking for a new, deep pocketed suitor to come in and help Everton challenege the bigger, richer clubs. Could Ambani be Kenwright’s guy?
Oh, on a side note, his brother Mukesh is worth slightly more $$$ than Anil, with an estimated fortune of $43 billion (whats a billion amongst billionaires anyway?). The brothers had a pretty big, public split after their father’s death, split their fathers company in half and pretty much don’t like each other. Imagine two brothers worth a combined $88 billi! Oh, and if you haven’t seen the 60 story (yes I said 60) house that Mukesh is building for himself. Apparently the house is costing $1 billion to $2 billion to build. Check out some pictures after the jump.
Like the other DP sites are reporting, a group of Vegas investors are interested in buying into the Columbus Crew. No one knows the direction this is going, but MLS expansion talk is all the rage ahead of October 15th. Mark Noorzai is the key investor here and they sound ambitious.
Could this proposed Harrah’s Las Vegas Arena - built in partnership with AEG - be a future home of an MLS team…?
Image via LasVegasLogue
Texas businessman Ellis Short bought a significant stake in Sunderland, the English Premier League told The Associated Press on Friday. Short is co-founder of Dallas-based private equity group Lone Star Funds. In August, he acquired more than 30 percent of the consortium that owns the club in northeast England.
Image via Art
