An article by Sports Illustrated revealed that according to their estimates 80% of elite athletes end up ruined economically. With the World Cup Qatar 2022 in the making, the issue of financial advice to footballers, and athletes in general, is back on the table. Today we will know a little more about the World Cup Qatar 2022, ruined footballers, and sports finance. The issue of financially ruined footballers and other athletes was dealt with by Gustavo Mirabal on numerous occasions.

The World Cup in Qatar is highly anticipated for many reasons. It is the first World Cup in the Arab region and the contrast both climatic and cultural has brought much controversy.

The fact that Qatar has never qualified for a World Cup and yet been selected to host the World Cup generated much controversy. The controversy led to accusations of bribery of members of the FIFA committee. However, independent investigations so far found no evidence in this regard. Despite this, France still has an ongoing investigation and the US accused 3 FIFA members of accepting bribes.

But there are still other controversies involved… And we will tell you these later. For now, we will tell you the differences and characteristics of the World Cup Qatar 2022.

World Cup Qatar 2022

FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 will be the third World Cup to have part of its matches on the Asian continent. It is also the first World Cup to be held in the Middle East.

Due to Qatar’s weather, the World Cup will not be held in summer like all the previous ones but between November 21 and December 18, 2022. Temperatures in Qatar during the summer are incredibly high, which would affect the performance and health of the players. This is one of the things that will make the World Cup Qatar 2022 unique.

Another curiosity is that the opening match will not include the host. The first match will be Senegal vs Netherlands

The only team debuting in the World Cup Qatar 2022, and it will be Qatar, which is in turn host and debutant. From the rest we have great champion teams such as:

• Brazil (five World Cups)
• Germany (four world championships)
• France (two world championships)
• Argentina (two World Cups)
• Uruguay (two world champion titles)
• Spain (a world championship)
• England (a world championship)

Italy is the only one of the world champions, with four titles under its belt, to be absent from the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

Ruined elite footballers. Athletes and finances.

As we discussed at the beginning of the article, elite athletes have serious problems maintaining good finances after their retirement. In the article “Finance for athletes“, we analyze in more detail the aspects that affect the finances of elite athletes.

But to sum up a little, athletes end up ruined because:

• They start earning a lot of money when they are not yet mature and do not know how to handle money.
• Their career is quite short and ends at a very young age.
• The large amounts of money they earn seem inexhaustible and therefore there is no real money management.
• Many people around take advantage of immaturity and resources that seem inexhaustible to ask for money or scam athletes.
• Many “financial advisors” who approach them are not really professionals in the field.

Therefore, athletes should seek professional financial advice to manage their assets and guarantee their future.

Below, we will show several cases of elite footballers who were totally ruined or who currently lead a very austere life.

Mané Garrincha

He participated in the football world cups of 1958, 1962 and 1966, held in Sweden, Chile and England respectively.

This Brazilian footballer suffered from a strong addiction to alcohol that deteriorated his health significantly. But he was also addicted to tobacco from a young age. He started smoking from the age of 10.

He also married on numerous occasions and had a total of 14 children which quickly exhausted his economic resources. Between alcohol and an unplanned reproduction ended in ruin.

Paul Gascoigne

If you see a list of ruined footballers, you will always find Paul Gascoigne. This footballer of the England national team participated in the World Cup in Italy 90. His talent was not enough so that his indiscretions did not affect his professional facet.

Gascoigne was instrumental in England’s qualification for the 1998 World Cup in France. However, a week before he was called up with the national team to the World Cup, photos of his way of life were leaked to the press. He was shown drunk and eating street food late at night when he was due to rest. Due to his indiscipline, he was not summoned to the World Cup. For this and his aggression to the coach for excluding him from the World Cup he did not play again with the England national team.

His problems with alcohol were the beginning of a streak that would lead him to ruin.

Salvador Cabañas Ortega

This Paraguayan player played with his country’s national team in the 2006 World Cup in Germany. He was also about to participate in the 2010 South Africa World Cup, in whose qualifiers he was the top scorer of the national team. But his aspirations were dashed by a gunshot wound in a bar in Mexico, fired by a drug trafficker.

A mixture of bad business, unnecessary expenses and waste, joined with his health situation after the assassination attempt, to end his finances. He received great support from his fans and football clubs, but his economic situation was very compromised.

Julio Alberto Moreno

This Spanish footballer played in the 1986 Mexico World Cup with the national team, reaching the quarterfinals.

After retiring he began his descent into hell. Between drug use and depression due to moving away from the courts this made him descend quickly. In 1998 he was arrested by the police for stealing money from the business where he worked. Due to this situation his life was at risk on several occasions.

Although he never regained the fame and money he lost, he was at least able to regain control of his life years later thanks to rehabilitation.

George Best

This footballer born in Belfast, played with the National Team of Northern Ireland although the selection never reached the World Cup. However, despite playing with a small team he stood out in his time and that is why we will make this exception. He played for the Northern Ireland national team from 1964 to 1977 (age 14). He also played with Mancherter United for 13 years and continued to play for other minor clubs until 1984.

Shortly after his retirement from football he revealed that he was financially ruined, acknowledging his excessive spending on “alcohol, women and fast cars”. To close, he said that, in his own words, “I wasted the rest.” Listening to his words we wonder what he spent the rest on if what was worth it were women, alcohol and sports cars.

Sergio Ramos, a detailed example for taking notes

Although he is not ruined, this footballer has gone through several economic setbacks due to his investments.

He participated in the 2006 World Cups in Germany, 2010 in South Africa, 2014 in Brazil and 2018 in Russia.

At just over 22 years of age, he lost more than $3 million due to the bankruptcy of the investment bank Lehman Brothers. This caused a decrease in his performance and conflicts with his teammates. But the Spanish footballer Sergio Ramos was not affected. With him also fell the legendary Raúl González, Guti or Puyol.

Advised by the law firm Garrigues and Cuatrecasas, these players lost much of their savings. Sergio sought to secure his patrimony and did nothing but diminish considerably. But this didn’t just affect the footballer. Thousands of investors advised on an investment opportunity “too good to be true”.

One of the principles of investing is diversification and the balance between risk and profit. In this case there was no great diversification and also the risks were hidden. That is why choosing a good financial advisor is essential. The good advisor not only gets carried away by the risk rating agencies but also knows in depth what he is investing.

After his loss in 2008 of three million euros with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, Ramos has been relying on better advisors.

However, Sergio has not stopped having losses because “some are lime and others sand”. While some of his businesses have been a success, such as his Sevillian stud, others have not been so successful. Below, we’ll review Sergio’s investment outlook and why his strategy increases its risks.

Shortly before his big losses.

In 2007, at just over 20 years old, the footballer became passionate about sports cars. A sports car is one of those purchases that a boy who lacks maturity accumulates without much thought. Especially if you have income that seems limitless. That’s how Ramos came to have more than 14 sports cars. Parked of course because no one can drive 14 sports cars at the same time.

This is one of the reasons why an elite athlete, arriving so early and immature at the zenith of his career, can end up broken.

But his idea of investing the patrimony was born very early and continues to this day. Perhaps by trial and error or perhaps by persistence, Sergio has achieved good opportunities, but not before taking more than one blow to the height of what happened with Lehman. Why so many missteps in an investment strategy. Let’s see below.

Sergio Ramos’ investments, strategy and advisors.

Sergio Ramos’ strategy is no different from that of many footballers who end up ruined. In Sergio’s case, he’s been a little lucky, but you can’t always count on this one. That is why professional financial knowledge and advice are there to do their job.

The first element that plays against Sergio is the aversion to financial advisors. After the experience with the advice of the law firm Garrigues and Cuatrecasas and Lehman Brother, Ramos moved away from professional advice.

Sometimes we think it’s better to make mistakes with good intentions than to make mistakes with intentions to make money. There may be a little more innocence in one, but in both you end up losing money.

Sergio in his eagerness to find trusted people delegated much of the responsibility for the management of his estate to his father, José María Ramos Reina. This with the best of intentions has managed the heritage based on “popular wisdom”.

Below, we will know some of their investments… Good and bad alike