Italian is the richest manager in British football

In his most recent book, Richard Branson reveals that rich lists are seldom accurate, based as they are on estimations and public domain information. Nevertheless, the good folks at Four Four Two have this week released the British Football Rich List, and there are few surprises at the top. David Beckham tops the players’ list with a supposed £125m fortune, and the wealthiest person in British football is still the QPR owner who isn’t about to be kicked out of the game, Lakshmi Mittal. The Indian steel magnate is said to be sitting on £18.4bn, nearly £1.5bn more than second-placed Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

In the richest manager top ten, noted money fan Harry Redknapp places at number seven with £10m, while second place is held by under-fire Ipswich coach Roy Keane, who apparently amassed the majority of his £27m fortune in his playing days.

The richest gaffer in Britain is also the one who has to take charge of the least amount of games - England manager Fabio Capello is worth £30m due to his utter refusal to pay tax hugely successful career.

[See the richest player list here, the manager list here and the full top 100 list here]

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

… not going to surprise you at all

France Football yesterday released their annual list of the world’s highest earning footballers, and David Beckham has come out on top, with total earnings of €32.4m in 2008.

The England star is paid around £4m a year for his services on the pitch (a figure that is currently being covered by loan club Milan in giant novelty cheque form), but is able to afford rocket cars, solid gold mansions and lobsters stuffed with diamonds thanks to his endorsement deals with Adidas, Gilette, Pepsi, Sharpies and anyone else with enough money afford his beautiful face. Interestingly, he also receives a share of ticket and merchandise sales at the MLS club he has absolutely no desire to play for.

All the usual suspects feature in the top ten highest earners, which you can check out after the jump…

Financial survey reveals Los Blancos’ enormous wealth

Last season, Manchester Utd’s income increased by £45m year-on-year, thanks to their Premier League and Champions League double. But that wasn’t enough to make them bigger earners than bitter rivals Real Madrid. According to the annual Football Money League report - published by financial services giant Deloitte yesterday - Los Blancos were the world’s highest earning club in 2007/08 with £289.6m. Manchester Utd were second (£257.1m), followed by Barcelona (£244.4m), Bayern Munich (£233.8m) and Chelsea (£212.9m).

At first glance, one may be very surprised to see Madrid at the top of the earnings chart - they were disappointing in the Champions League, and the validity of their accounts is a grey area thanks to the Ramon Calderon scandal. The reason for the dominance, however, is actually our worthless currency. Nice one, Alistair Darling:

Only a drastic slump in the value of sterling

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?

… not an LA galaxy player

Sports Illustrated magazine have compiled their annual sports rich list, which Tiger Woods dominates for the second year running. He banked nearly $112million last year, which is over $12,700 an hour. That’s a lot of tees.

They also publish a list of the top 20 non-American earners, the results of which are quite surprising: Beckham is fifth and only one Premier League player makes the top ten:

1. Fernando Alonso. Auto Racing. $35m.
2. Ronaldinho. Barcelona. $32.7m.
3. Roger Federer. Tennis. $31.3m.
4. Valentino Rossi. Motor Sports. $30m.
5. David Beckham. Real Madrid/LA Galaxy. $29.7m.