TALKSPORT
There are not many people in the world who can buy Manchester United but one footballer could stump up the cash.
It is no secret that the best professionals enjoy cushy lives on mega wages but not all of them become billionaires.
Granted, not many are members of the royal family, like Faiq Bolkiah, arguably the richest footballer in the world with a net worth of £16billion ($20bn), last reported by Marca in 2020.
To put that in perspective, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are often denoted as the players with the highest earnings every year.
Messi is worth a reported £511million and Ronaldo approximately £412m, both reported by the the Express.
That amounts to less than a billion – a fraction of Bolkiah’s total net worth – not bad for a someone who has played in the academies at Chelsea, Leicester and Southampton.
And with the Glazers putting United up for sale for £6bn, that means that the youngster could afford to purchase the club twice over – and still have plenty of change in his pocket.
Qatar’s Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Sir Jim Ratcliffe might have something to say about that as the frontrunners for the purchase of the club.
While there is no interest from the Bruneian royal family, they could easily blow both of the two prospectors out of the water but Bolkiah is just concentrating on his football.
As the nephew of the Sultan of Brunei Hassanal Bolkiah, Faiq never truly had to work a day in his life but that did not stop him from achieving his dream of becoming a professional footballer.
Currently plying his trade in Thailand for Chonburi, the 24-year-old has not given up making it in the big leagues having spent time with some Premier League giants.
At the age of 12, he signed for Southampton’s academy in 2009 after starting out at AFC Newbury, a club near his school Bradfield College in Berkshire.
After a brief spell with Reading, Arsenal offered Bolkiah a trial where he played in the 2013 Lion City Cup against the likes of Corinthians. PSV Eindhoven and Eintracht Frankfurt and even bagged a goal.
But it was Chelsea that snapped him up in 2014 on a two-year contract where he plied his trade for the reserves before leaving for Leicester on a four-year deal.
