Three Celtic shareholders have appeared ahead of Sir David Murray in the list of the 100 richest football investors compiled by Leaders in Football and published by FourFourTwo.
Denis O’Brien comes in at an impressive number 7 ahead of the Glazer family of Manchester United (9) and Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone (10) who has a 15% stake in QPR.
Celtic’s biggest individual shareholder, Dermot Desmond is rated as the 11th richest shareholder in British football with Willie Haughey ‘trailing’ in 43rd place just ahead of Middlesbrough’s Steve Gibson and Stewart Milne of Aberdeen.
Murray, who has unsuccessfully been trying to sell Rangers for a number of years, is rated as the 48th wealthiest man in football with his fortune down from last years £450m to a ‘mere’ £110m.
The revaluation takes account of losses of £226.3m during 2008/2009 which isn’t solely down to Rangers Champions League defeat to Kaunus.
O’Brien is barely known amongst the Celtic support and has a 2.82% stake in the club amongst various business interests. According to the list his telecommunications empire covers 42 radio stations across eight European countries
His other investments include a stake in mobile company Digicel, the Quinta do Largo golf resort in Portugal and a 26% share in Irish News & Media.
Desmond is reported to have grown his personal fortune from £1bn to £1.39bn over the last year thanks to disposing of assets such as London City Airport when it’s value was at a peak.
Haughey’s value is believed to have increased from £100m to £150m over the last twelve month with his main interests being in refrigeration as well as hotels and property.
The list was compiled to coincide with the Leaders in Football Conference staged at Chelsea over the last two days.
Amongst the speakers at the international event were: Danny Jordaan, CEO, South Africa World Cup Organising Committee, Mohamed Bin HammamPresident, Asian Football Confederation, David Gold West Ham chairman, Steve Morgan Wolves chairman, Phil Neville and Danny Murphy.
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Not that it does us much good.
All I’ll say is…..
If I had the wealth that our 3 guys seem to have…..
we wouldn’t have any debt…..
and our player targets would be from a higher level…..
Mike Bhoyle
problem for us is we could have all the money in the world but unless either the SPL improves or we move out of the SPL NO top player would ever think of coming to play for us.
Sad but true.
Best save our money until either of the two change!