Gambling, Drugs and Alcohol Causing Bankrupt Footballers
It's not just football clubs that go bankrupt. Clubs like Bury, Rushden & Diamonds and Chester City are a few clubs that have declared bankruptcy and have ceased to exist. These clubs made poor choices with player salaries far exceeding operating income in an effort to stay relevant on the pitch.
It's estimated about 40% of professional football players go bankrupt within five years of retiring. How the fcuk do they manage that when an average Premier League footballer earns £60,000 a week? Let's take a look at some of the reasons.
Poor Investments
It's no surprise that investment firms are cultures when it comes to providing their services to players which often leads to some poor investment advice, similar to the bankrupted football clubs taking the advice to go ahead with certain player transfers. Almost 600 footballers including Wayne Rooney, Rio Ferdinand, Andy Cole and Danny Murphy have lost millions of dollars to poor investments by Kingsbridge Asset Management.
Rumour also has it that Asamoah Gyan can't even provide for his family any more. He used to drive around in a Rolls Royce and was earning £227,000 a week in China. Gyan even invested money in trying to launch his own airline in Ghana called Baby Jet Airlines. No I'm not joking.
Gyan's Rolls Royce has been spotted in the streets of Ghana's capital in an outrageous and insensitive contrast. His number plate also makes reference to Baby Jet. Lawl.
Lifestyles of the rich & famous…check out Asamoah Gyan’s latest Rolls Royce https://t.co/FZoY7YT10y pic.twitter.com/GDzWYcnSOA
— Ameyaw Debrah (@AmeyawDebrah) November 3, 2015
Divorce
Part of Gyan's financial spiral also came about following a bitter divorce from his ex-wife. I'd be pissed too if he was flaunting a Rolls Royce around hard working Ghanaians. Gyan then demanded DNA tests to prove that her kids are his. Former star goalkeeper David James is another to declare bankruptcy, doing so in 2014 despite earning more than £20m in his playing career, modelling for Armani and having an impressive property portfolio.
Drugs and Alcohol
Paul Gascoigne was one of England's greatest ever Footballers but in 2014 the national hero hit rock bottom and was facing homelessness following a life of drugs and alcohol during his career.
Former Brazilian superstar Ronaldinho also became victim to addition, fell into bankruptcy and was even thrown into a Paraguayan jail for entering the country with fake documents. It didn't take him long to party after getting out of jail though.
Ronaldinho needed only three hours to return to being Ronaldinho. He nailed a party after being released. 😂😂😂 #SilverSports pic.twitter.com/XZf9KdIEVd
— Fancy Di Maria (@FancyDiMaria_) August 25, 2020
Gambling
Many football players have been banned for breaching FA rules on betting. Joey Barton for instance was banned for placing more than 1200 bets over 10 years that broke FA rules.
A young Nicklas Bendtner almost fcuked his entire life up in a 90-minute roulette tilt which saw him lose £400,000. He managed to claw most of it back and wisely left the casino. Former players Paul Merson and Keith Gillespie both lost £7m to gambling which led them to bankruptcy.
Clout
When players go from nothing to having it all its easy to get carried away with a fleet of exotic vehicles, mansions and the upkeep of an entourage of leeches. Eric Djemba-Djemba flopped at United but he still got his bags of cash.
A young Djemba-Djemba was earning £75,000 at the Red Devils but somehow went bankrupt after reportedly owning more than 10 SUVs. It's easy for players to fall into the trap of trying to keep up with all the designer clout.
YES, ANOTHER FOOTBALL BLOG...
Football Blog FC is a spin-off of Wolfgang Sport, an American and British sports blog I created in 2017. The beautiful game isn't what I remember it to be as a kid and using satire is my way of coping with it. FBFC was created to write about football with a bit of fun reflecting the current state of football.
It is very sad to see that some football players are not getting it together after a succesfull career. I am surprised that not everything was due to excessive lifestyles. As you mentioned a few examples that were just adviced by the wrong people. This just shows that to have financial literacy is something worth having.
Ahhhh it's like when people hit the lottery!! Numbers feel powerful until it's burned away. Interesting stuff!
This is a very interesting one and I would say I've seen patterns with all these players and it hurts.
Gyan, Eboue... All with bad investments and terrible divorces that wrecks them.
Paul Gascoigne and Ronaldinho are another with drug problems. There was a time I heard Messi came to Ronaldinho's aid after he was left with nothing. Don't know how true that is but it's sad to see these people make terrible choices. They have been used to having it all and they just think it would always keep coming back.
Adriano is another one too.
This Gyan story shocked me. Wow. I still listened to him during the match analysis for the Nations Cup. Who would have imagined he was dealing with a lot. The bad choices these footballers make sometimes.
Mehn! This is shocking to know. But in all, proper financial management and general lifestyle is a great way to build and grow wealth.
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Bankruptcy is something which almost enrirely depends on financial knowledge and literacy.Club offered them low wage, that doesn’t mean completely its managerial fault.
Yes,in most cases, club authorities and officials cut in the proper salary which supposed to be given to the players, instead they fill up their own pocket, thats no 1 clubs liability to check the internal corruption.
Secondly,players lost the way and suffered in investment plans, where to put the money they earned during career time, a state of indecisive and banging the money to casino and ends up vanishing the stocks,.. Nobody accept greed to be blamed fo them.
Such a real life case, thanks for sharing the knowledge..
When I was doing my list about players going bankrupt it was surprising the amount of players who went to these things.
It is sad to see those that ended up bankrupt, I wish they ended a lot better.
You know, it beats my imagination and I always find it hard to believe whenever I hear that an ex-sportsman goes bankrupt, especially footballers who played at the highest level. Remember Eboue's case that almost led him to suicide before Galatasaray came to his rescue?
I believe it's normal human instinct to think that you'd retire one day and you need to plan for it.
I hope the younger generational players have learnt a lot from them though.
Good read. I have seen footballers go really broke after retirement like wow.