F1 villain could soon fail the fit and proper person test

A rotund 59-year-old with grey thinning hair and his 29-year-old wife, Italian Wonderbra model Elisabetta Gregoraci. Life, she is not fair.

Unless you have no interest in the sport where they drive around in circles for hours on end in order to sell advertising, you will have heard that Flavio Briatore has stepped down from the Renault F1 team, following the race fixing allegations at the Singapore 2008 Grand Prix.

After Renault bosses announced that the part-owner of QPR is “morally responsible” for an incident which allegedly saw Nelson Piquet Jr massively risk his own safety by deliberately crashing, it looks as if the FIA may throw him out of the sport.

If this happens, he will fail the Football League’s fit and proper person test, which states that a person cannot own a majority interest in a team if they are “subject to a ban from a sports governing body relating to the administration of their sport.”

The knock-on effect for QPR is currently up for debate. The West Londoners would probably miss his commercial nous, new sponsors may be reticent to do business with the club if he stayed. Considering the fact

Usmanov loses 74 per cent of his fortune

Britain’s super-rich were crying in their corn flakes yesterday morning as The Sunday Times Rich List detailed the damage to their collective banks accounts. In the past year, the number of billionaires has fallen from 75 to 43, and the cumulative wealth of the nation’s 1,000 richest people has fallen from £413bn to £258bn.

Roman Abramovich - who has had to cut back on his expensive yacht habit this year - remains in second place with an estimated fortune of £7bn, down 40 per cent from £11.7bn.

Popular Newcastle Utd owner Mike Ashley has also suffered from the nation’s reticence to buy Lonsdale hoodies

Chelsea’s Championship neighbours have more spending power

Just a few short years ago, Roman Abramovich could have afforded to pay Cristiano Ronaldo to clean his cars and Robinho to massage his feet all day, but the true extent of the changing balance of power in the Premier League has been revealed. According to figures released in this month’s Four Four Two, Manchester City’s Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nayan is worth more than double his Russian counterpart, while QPR part-owner and Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal has also overtaken him in the wealth stakes.

Abramovich has been particularly hit hard by the global crunchy credit thing (he has reportedly dropped £4.7bn and sacked all his yacht staff), and as a result has limited Chelsea January spending budget to somewhere around zero pounds.

The huge shortening in in Big Phil’s odds in the sack race this week is rumoured to be due the Brazilian’s anger with the cash flow halt, and the club’s decision that he cannot spend the Wayne Bridge transfer money.

Spoiler bonus: Can you guess which player tops the rich league?