Many aspiring athletes hold the dream of wanting to be footballers because of the luxury lifestyle enjoyed by the top players. Footballers are some of the highest paid people in the world, but that wasn’t always the case. Back in the 1960s, footballers in the UK were struggling to get contracts giving them £100 a week. By the 1980s, some of the bigger names were earning thousands every week but salaries were nowhere near the dream levels of today.
Football started becoming a gigantic business back in the 1990s, when the Premier League in England began to attract the best players in the world; the contracts between the Premier League and the big TV companies have taken the riches earned by players into the stratosphere. And given that the average weekly wage of a Premier League footballer is now a six-figure sum, most clubs are home to multi-millionaire players.
Of course, it’s not just English football that’s upped the ante. La Liga in Spain has long been a wealthy home for footballers, with massive clubs like Barcelona and Real Madrid making global megastars of players like Messi and Ronaldo.
Let’s explore five of the finest footballer houses.
Wayne Rooney
It isn’t so long since Rooney was one of the top players in the world and one of the most talented players of his generation. He attained great wealth by the time he was in his early twenties - when he was a top striker for Manchester United and England, he and his wife had a Georgian-style manor house built in the Cheshire region of the UK. The couple bought a 50-acre plot for £3.9 million in 2017 and splashed £20 million on their six-bedroom “mini Versailles”, which they named ‘High Lake Manor’ when they finally moved there in 2021. Aside from the luxurious reception rooms, the property boasts a study, library, home cinema, snooker room, wine cellar, a whiskey and cigar room, stables and paddock for their horses, a football pitch, an orangery, supercar garage, swimming pool, and spa facilities.
David Beckham
As England captain, David Beckham became the face of football around the world and along with his wife, former Spice Girl Victoria, the Beckhams are a global brand in their own right. Nowadays, Beckham spends a lot of time in Florida as the owner of American club Inter Miami, but his main base with his family remains in London. The most expensive home in their property portfolio is the detached Victorian townhouse, a Grade ll-listed building, bought in 2013 for an astronomical £30.6 million. Located in London's highly desirable Holland Park, the imposing property was remodelled in 2016 at an estimated cost of £7.8 million. The stylish townhouse is probably the most valuable property owned by a footballer, with six bedrooms, dressing rooms, a gym, wine cellar, a pool, spa, and gourmet chef's kitchen.
Harry Kane
England’s current captain made headlines when he moved from Tottenham Hotspurs to German giants Bayern Munich in the summer of 2023. Already a multi-millionaire from his goalscoring exploits in the English Premier League, Kane became one of the best paid footballers in the world, and his lifestyle, specifically his family house in Germany, reflects his vast wealth. Signing for Bayern saw Kane swap his London mansion for one in the ‘Beverly Hills of Bavaria’. Located on a picturesque hilltop with an amazing view of the River Isar below, the Kane family’s £30 million dream-home has all the amenities you’d expect inside but with the bonus of having a sundeck and garden on the edge of one of Germany’s most beautiful forests.
Neymar Junior
The biggest Brazilian football superstar of his generation, Neymar has spent the best years of his career at Barcelona and Paris St Germain, with luxury homes in both of those cities, but his heart will always be back in Brazil, and specifically Rio de Janeiro. Now playing in the UAE, Neymar’s main home is still back in Rio – and what a home. In 2016, Neymar paid £6.7 million for the waterside mansion on a 2.5-acre lot in Brazil’s elite Portobello Resort amid the tropical paradise of Mangaratiba. A very far cry from the tiny slum home of his youth, the 67,000-square-foot six-bedroom mansion is as luxurious as they come, with a huge pool, Jacuzzi, tennis and beach volleyball courts, a helipad where Neymar also docks his yacht, not to mention an expansive chef's kitchen, 3,000-bottle wine cellar, gym, massage room and sauna.
Megan Rapinoe
Perhaps the most famous female footballer ever, former American superstar Rapinoe played in World Cups and Olympic Games where her style made her an icon of the women’s game. And since retiring from football, she’s just as high-profile because of that style, her activism and lifestyle – it’s no surprise that she and her partner live in a super-fashionable New York Apartment that reflects her superstar personality. The ultra-stylish apartment is a 1,650-square-foot, two-bedroom place in SoHo with cityscape views and rooftop terrace. The décor is well suited to the multi-millionaire fashion icon – A-list designer Mark Grattan was hired and the result is a super-stylish space filled with unique artworks, picture-perfect stairwell and striking bedroom with custom-made furniture. Known for her colourful, quirky dress sense, Rapinoe famously has a closet where she keeps her vast collection of fashionable footwear.
Footballers and their homes have now crossed over into the worlds of interior design and innovative architecture. The fields they are now playing in are much wider reaching than the pitches where thousands of fans watch them ply their trade. These superstars are looked upon for the locations they choose to live in, the trends and styles they apply to their homes and how they develop the ideas of high end modern residences. It’s usually always a home win.
