Sports Joe
The Swansea City ball boy who was infamously kicked by Eden Hazard has made The Times’ Young Rich List after racking up an estimated fortune of £40 million.
Charlie Morgan is behind Au Vodka, a premium brand of vodka that has become famed for its golden bottles.
Back in 2013, in a League Cup semi-final second leg between Swansea and Chelsea, he made national headlines after Eden Hazard was sent off for kicking him as a 17-year-old ball boy.
Swansea were leading 2-0 from the first leg and Morgan tried to hold on to the ball in the 80th minute. Hazard, in a desperate attempt to retrieve the ball, he inadvertently kicked the youngster, who proceeded to roll around holding his ribs.
The Belgian star, in just his first season at Chelsea, was given a straight red for his actions and received a three-game ban.
At the time, Morgan, the son of Swansea City’s biggest shareholders Martin and Louisa, was studying for his A-levels.
Fast forward 10 years and he and his school friend Jackson Quinn had set up Au Vodka.
The brand, with its trademark gold bottles in seven different flavours, has gone on to provide service to the likes of Selfridges, Harvey Nichols, Tesco and Costco, while Sainsbury’s and Asda will soon stock the product.
To begin with, they produced 2,000 bottles a day locally to bars in Swansea but the remarkable growth of the company has seen that figure increase to 35,000 bottles per day and Au is available in 40 countries across the globe…
