The top 10 richest Premier League club owners - including Chelsea, Spurs, and West Ham chiefs

Ask any Manchester United fan what they think of the Glazers, and the vast majority would tell you that they are a scourge on their beloved club - the most problematic and damaging American brood since the Manson Family.

Now, the extent to which that may or may not be true is a matter of opinion, but certainly you would have to argue that once a relationship between owner and fanbase has become as toxic as the current one at Old Trafford, salvation feels like an improbable prospect. How the Red Devils delighted, therefore, when the Glazers made it clear earlier in the year that they were actively seeking a buyer to take United off their hands.

And how they have subsequently fumed in recent days at the news that the clan have now made an apparent U-turn and will not be relinquishing their grasp on the club after all. The news has not been taken well, to say the least; share prices are in free fall, and there have been vaguely menacing promises from fan groups about chaos to come. Things are not great.

So, with that in mind, why not take a moment to distract from the mess in Manchester by taking a look over the 10 richest club owners in the Premier League today. On second thoughts, that might not be such a comforting distraction after all...

10. Daniel Levy and Joe Lewis, Tottenham Hotspur - Net worth: £4.74 billion

Daniel Levy replaced Alan Sugar as Tottenham chairman in 2001, which means that no matter how frustrating and languid things get under the glabrous retailer, Spurs supporters may always take solace in the fact that they can say, ‘Well, at least he isn’t Alan Sugar’.

9. Guo Guangchang, Liang Xinjun, and Wang Qunbin - Wolves - Net worth: £5.64 billion

In 2019, Guo Guangchang was named the 45th richest man in China, a standing made all the more impressive by the fact that at the time of writing, the country currently boasts 495 billionaires. Imagine being richer than 450 billionaires.

Guo doesn’t have to imagine. He’s living it, baby.

8. David Sullivan and Daniel Kretinsky - West Ham - Net worth: £5.96 billion

David Sullivan initially made his fortune selling pornography, and he is not in the slightest bit ashamed of who knows it. As the man himself once said: “I’ve made a lot of people happy. If I was an arms manufacturer or a cigarette manufacturer, and my products killed millions of my clients, I’d have a bit of doubt about the whole thing. I was a freedom fighter.”

Maybe his love of liberty is what drew him to David Moyes, a man who is approximately one pot of blue face paint away from being the Premier League’s very own answer to Mel Gibson in Braveheart. (Is the sarcasm reading? I would like the sarcasm to be reading.)

7. Shahid Khan - Fulham - Net worth: £6.45 billion

Fulham chief Shahid Khan has his fingers in more pies than a clumsy baker. When he’s not bankrolling the Cottagers, he’s supplying motor vehicle parts to Americans as the owner of Flex-N-Gate, masterminding the ol’ hand-egg for the Jacksonville Jaguars, and investing his sweet, sweet spondulix into the soap opera grappling of All Elite Wrestling.

For all of his ventures, however, perhaps his crowning glory, and indeed his greatest gift to humanity writ large, was the removal of that godawful Michael Jackson statue from outside Craven Cottage. I like to imagine that he stripped down to his undershirt in the dead of night, tied a length of rope around its midriff, and singlehandedly dragged the monstrosity away while singing the refrain from Earth Song.

6. John W. Henry and Tom Werner - Liverpool - Net worth: £8 billion

Legend has it that the ‘W’ in John W. Henry stands for ‘Will you please for the love of all that is holy put your hand in your pocket and by us a world class defensively-minded midfielder to make up for the unexpected recent losses of Jordan Henderson and Fabinho to the Saudi Pro League?’.

An alternative school of thought suggests that it stands for ‘Wataru Endo is the best I can do, pal.’

5. Nassef Sawiris and Wesley Edens - Aston Villa - Net worth: £9.72 billion

Aston Villa are like that mate you used to knock about with as a kid who you would completely forget was minted until their mam would come and pick them up from your house in a BMW 4x4 with a private reg. In other words, yes, Unai Emery is doing a wonderful job at Villa Park, but by no means are they complete and utter underdogs.

4. Stan Kroenke - Arsenal - Net worth: £10.5 billion

Does Stan Kroenke like sports? Well, given that he owns not just Arsenal, but also franchises in the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLS we can probably assume he does. Either that, or he bloody loves acronyms.

The other alterative, and the one that I hope against all hope is true, is that he keeps buying things based on their name alone and is slowly amassing an unwanted portfolio of outfits that remind him on a daily basis of his ongoing foolishness. What do you mean the Arsenal isn’t actually a collection of antique firearms? Why would they name them the Los Angeles Rams if they weren’t indeed a herd of sun-kissed ovines? How can it be that the Denver Nuggets have nothing to do with either gold or chicken? Darn this confounded world!

3. Todd Boehly, Clearlake Capital Group, Hansjorg Wyss, and Mark Walter - Chelsea - Net worth: £12.91 billion

Todd Boehly’s relationship with his chequebook is reminisce of a ring-tailed lemur’s relationship with an angle grinder - just because he has it doesn’t mean he knows how to use it, nor does it mean that he isn’t going to try bashing a few things with it anyways.

To suggest Chelsea have spent wildly without making any kind of notable improvement under the American businessman would be something of an understatement, and the name Clearlake is evidently a misnomer given that with every passing signing the waters of intention and reason at Stamford Bridge are muddied just a little further.

2. Sheikh Mansour - Manchester City - Net worth: £17.9 billion

The trend-setter when it comes to pumping grubby Middle Eastern oil money into a club until the seams of their morality are bulging and popping, Sheikh Mansour - Emirati royal and Vice President of the United Arab Emirates - has been pulling the strings at the Etihad since 2008.

At the time of writing, City are still currently basking in the glow of last season’s historic treble win, and are facing charges of over 100 alleged breaches of Financial Fair Play regulations. Are the two things related? That’s not for us to speculate on.

1. Public Investment Fund - Newcastle United - Net worth: £506 billion

Newcastle United, like one of those teenage lottery winners that Channel Five make documentaries about, have gone from rooting around in a Sports Direct clearance sale to rubbing shoulders with the upper crust in an incomprehensibly swift period of time.

A full 80% of the club is now owned by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, which itself is supported by the kingdom’s Sovereign Wealth Fund - one of the largest in the world. In short, the Magpies owe their vast, vast riches to oil, which is fitting, because whenever anybody asks manager Eddie Howe about the moral implications of such an arrangement, he gets very, very slippery.