Meet world’s richest footballer and it is not Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi

We all know that football is one of the most popular sports in the world and star footballers like Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and others earn millions of rupees for their skills on the field. But you would be surprised to know that neither Messi nor Ronaldo is the richest footballer in world. Faiq Bolkiah, the 23-year-old former Chelsea and Leicester City academy star is the richest footballer in the world.

Faiq plays for Brunei international team and he is the nephew of the Sultan of Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah - whose net worth is around USD 17.5 billion.

But despite being super rich, Faiq lived a dream and became a professional footballer.

Faiq was born in Los Angeles, US and he got educated at Bradfield College in Berkshire, England. In 2009, Faiq joined Southampton's youth academy to play football.

In 2013, Arsenal showed interest in Faiq and after staying at the Gunners for around a year Faiq had signed for Chelsea.

Faiq's former Stamford Bridge team-mate Ruben Sammut said that despite his rich background, Faiq was always a humble person.

"You would never ever have thought he was something like the 12th in line to the throne," he told The Athletic. "You would not have thought of him as royalty. We used to play against him. I think he was at Reading. We didn’t realise who he was and nobody at Chelsea initially knew what his background was.
He was a humble guy, trying every day like every academy player. We used to joke he didn’t need to play football but he wanted to play because he loved football," he added.

Faiq is currently contracted to Portuguese top-flight side Maritimo.