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16 March 2013
Last updated at 09:34 GMT
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Riches to Rags: Millionaire footballers who lose everything
By Rajeev Gupta
BBC Radio 4 You and Yours Reporter
Comments (385)
At the peak of his career, Lee Hendrie was earning more than £30,000 a week playing for Aston Villa in the Premier League.
He won an England cap and was considered one of the best young English players of the late 1990s, in the same generation as Frank Lampard, Rio Ferdinand and Steven Gerrard.
But at the age of 35, his days of luxury cars and million-pound houses are well and truly behind him. In January 2012, faced with spiralling debts and repossession, Hendrie was declared bankrupt after twice trying to take his own life.
Hendrie, who is still playing for non-league side Tamworth, has spoken of his dramatic fall from grace and, according to sporting charity XPro, he is just one of a number of footballers facing serious financial problems. The group claims as many as three in five Premier League footballers face bankruptcy within five years of retiring from the game.
Players who have gone bankrupt
John Arne Riise
Brad Friedel
Keith Gillespie
Celestine Babayaro
Eric Djemba-Djemba
John Barnes
Jason Euell
Carl Cort
Last updated at 09:34 GMT
1.2K
Share
Riches to Rags: Millionaire footballers who lose everything
By Rajeev Gupta
BBC Radio 4 You and Yours Reporter
Comments (385)
At the peak of his career, Lee Hendrie was earning more than £30,000 a week playing for Aston Villa in the Premier League.
He won an England cap and was considered one of the best young English players of the late 1990s, in the same generation as Frank Lampard, Rio Ferdinand and Steven Gerrard.
But at the age of 35, his days of luxury cars and million-pound houses are well and truly behind him. In January 2012, faced with spiralling debts and repossession, Hendrie was declared bankrupt after twice trying to take his own life.
Hendrie, who is still playing for non-league side Tamworth, has spoken of his dramatic fall from grace and, according to sporting charity XPro, he is just one of a number of footballers facing serious financial problems. The group claims as many as three in five Premier League footballers face bankruptcy within five years of retiring from the game.
Players who have gone bankrupt
John Arne Riise
Brad Friedel
Keith Gillespie
Celestine Babayaro
Eric Djemba-Djemba
John Barnes
Jason Euell
Carl Cort
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