Who is that African player topping the wealthy list among footballers in that category in the English premier league?
He is Chelsea striker Samuel Eto’o. Yes, the wealthiest foreign-born player in the English Premier League with a net worth of $64 million, according to a survey conducted by Singapore-based Wealth-X.
The company, with one of the world’s largest collection of curated research on ultra-high-net worth individuals, puts Welsh footballer of Manchester United Ryan Giggs as the second-wealthiest foreign-born player in the EPL with a net worth of $45 million.
Eto’o’s team mate at Stamford Bridge Fernando Torres, who hails from Spain, comes third with $42 million.
Manchester City stars Yaya Toure from Ivory Coast and Argentina’s Sergio Aguero completes the top five with a net worth of $41 million and $39 million respectively.
Although the EPL is often regarded as being dominated by foreign players, the survey reveals that the combined net worth of the top ten wealthiest English-born EPL players led by Wayne Rooney with a net worth $73 million is roughly $20 million greater than the combined net worth of the wealthiest foreign-born players performing in the EPL.
“The results of this survey may come as a surprise for many, who may have been under the impression that foreign-born EPL players receive more rewarding compensation than their English counterparts,” said Michael Byrne, Wealth-X UK Director.
“English-born footballers in the EPL amass greater sponsorship and are therefore in a position to accumulate greater overall net worth. This run-down certainly produces more surprises than the English-born list.”
Eto’o, 32, who joined the Blues for a one-year deal last August, recently bought a fleet of four cars worth £4million, which included Bugatti Veyron, Aston Martin and Maybach Xenatec.
“To help others you need to be happy with yourself first,” Eto’o had responded to local critics in Cameroun who described the acquisition of those cars as extravagant.
In a related story of wealth, a former EPL player also of Chelsea, Didier Drogba, was reported to have bought a 5 percent stake in the Ity gold mine in Ivory Coast as part of a sale of state assets to a company led by Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris, a government official said.
Drogba, who won the European Champions League with Chelsea in 2012 and currently plays for Turkey’s Galatasaray, made the investment through a company called Didier Drogba Group, Bruno Kone, a government spokesman, said by phone today from Abidjan, the commercial capital. Drogba, 35, has served as the captain of Ivory Coast’s national soccer team, known as the elephants
Ivory Coast sold part of its holding in the mine to a group including Canadian miner La Mancha Resources Inc., Drogba’s company and other private investors, Kone said. Sawiris is the chairman of Montreal-based La Mancha.
La Mancha will now control 55 percent of the mine, an increase from the 45.9 percent it previously held, Kone said. Ivory Coast will 35 percent while private investors hold 10 percent.
Ity, which is in the west of Ivory Coast, has been open since 1991 and had the capacity to produce 31,000 ounces of gold last year, according to La Mancha’s website.
