Smart Football: Robbie Fowler’s Property Business

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robbie fowler's time at manchester city

was unremarkable

his liverpool prime was long in the past

by that point and arguably it's a period

of his career

most memorable now for the chant with

which city fans used to serenade him

sung to the tune of the beatles yellow

submarine

we all live in a robbie fowler house

fowler liked that charm it was a good

one it did make me chuckle

he told the guardian in 2015 and

understandably so

in 2005 robbie fowler was included in

the sunday times

rich list with an estimated wealth of 28

million pounds

partly raised by his careers earnings

and the endorsements collected along the

way

but embellished by substantial property

holdings

across the uk now by today's standards

that

isn't noteworthy but fowler comes from a

different

professional era he emerged at liverpool

during the 1993-94 season

the second in the premier league's

history and at a time when money and

fame were just becoming industry

standards

from that time there are too many scare

stories to mention of bad investments

bankruptcy and ultimately tales of naive

players

who weren't properly prepared to deal

with the money and the media coverage

fowler who was born and raised in

tocstath and scored goals with such

uncomplicated class

was heading for a world he could barely

imagine and the changes were sudden

and startling as fowler described in his

autobiography

nothing changed in my routine except

that when i went down to the chippy and

got my special fried rice

it would be wrapped in a newspaper that

had my picture all over it

it's no wonder i struggled to come to

terms with it all every game i played

something seemed to happen that made me

a little more famous or a little more

notorious

now this of course wasn't the generation

of gilded academy contracts

fowler earned 29 pounds 50 per week as a

trainee

and his first professional deal was for

just 220 pounds per week

even after scoring five goals in a

league cup game against fulham the

extension liverpool hurriedly offered

only promised 500 pounds per week

fowler came through at liverpool under

the management of graeme souness

however poultry the young forward's

wages may have been at the time

souness still recognised how his talent

was likely to make him vulnerable

he was right by the end of the decade

fowler would be earning 30 000 pounds

per week

and many of his peers had become

cautionary tales

football's boom was certainly decadent

but it was also dangerous

but fowler himself would avoid these

pitfalls as a teenager

soonest introduced him to george scott a

financial advisor he'd met during his

time at glasgow rangers

over time scott would become a long-term

ally a second father as fowler describes

and he would also act as his agent

during contract negotiations

and endorsement deals which among others

he would sign with nike

and kellogg's he would also fight

fowler's corner during one of the first

recorded instances in british football

of an image rights dispute over

liverpool's attempt to sell a vhs of his

goals

without paying him royalties he would

eventually be recompensed with two

pounds for every video sold

and while incidental by modern standards

it put him at the vanguard of a

different

sort of footballing movement

fowler's property interests date back to

1998.

he'd already bought houses for his

mother his father and himself

but with the aim of providing an income

for himself after retirement

he began building a portfolio of buy to

let properties

now of course today that's hardly an

original approach however back in the

1990s

there was still the expectation derisory

as it was that footballers should know

their place and any sense that they were

spending money on something other than

fast cars gambling and nights out

was treated with distrust and often as

if it must have an ulterior motive

when for instance fowler and his

advisors spotted a rental property in

hadley wood

a leafy suburb north of london the

tabloid splash in early 1999

became that he was preparing for a move

to arsenal

two decades on the dimensions of his

portfolio are rather vague

fowler has always contested the veracity

of reports surrounding his wealth

claiming the figures to be either media

guesswork or based on calculations that

ignore that he works in partnerships

with others

whatever the case it's his wife kerry

whom he credits for much of the success

she's the one who's been wearing the

trousers she's the boss he told the

guardian

in 2015. she did it all while i was

playing

basically i go out and earn the money

it's his name that carries the weight

though

the robbie fowler property academy is

owned and run by a transatlantic

training company

the courses and products don't involve

fowler himself but it's his face that

looks out from the promotional material

inviting those interested to build a

property portfolio

without the need for a footballer's

salary in fowler's case it's

quite the portfolio containing in excess

of 80 properties

the majority of which are reported to be

apartments and small family homes spread

across liverpool

cardiff and parts of scotland although

the list is thought to include larger

properties too

and some outside of the united kingdom

past acquisitions also include nine

terraced houses on a single street in

oldham an entire side of the road

and a further six on a separate street

the liverpool echo interviewed one of

his tenants who described a typical two

up two down set up inside

while the manchester evening news

interviewed another in 2004

who was happy with his cheap rent 55

pound a week and delighted to have a

celebrity landlord

in february 2020 fowler also announced

that he was part of a new development

project in liverpool city center

saint anne's gardens was originally

scheduled for completion in 2021 and

will when finished offer more than 300

luxury one and two bedroom flats

in the heart of the city just a short

bus ride from anfield

so almost full circle for robbie fowler

then but a very long way

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