How Boris Becker Wasted his $170 Million Fortune

this van is transporting a criminal who has just been served a two and a half year prison sentence a person reportedly 50 million euros in debt convicted on hiding from creditors large amounts of questionable money luxury properties bank loans and stock shares though you've perhaps heard the countless tales of wealthy con men infamously brought to justice in similar circumstances this is not your average person but instead the former world number one ranked tennis legend boris becker becker of course wasn't just any player but a worldwide sporting icon having bursted onto the international tennis scene as the youngest ever male player to win wimbledon with good looks iconic diving volleys and a massive serve which gave him the nickname boom boom boris becker was revered both back home and abroad having had songs written about him species named after him and even had his rackets gifted to the pope having remained extremely relevant to this day as both a high-profile tv personality and coach to novak djokovic the german's decades-long successes only served to better mask the extremely real money hole he had found himself drowning in for many many years a whole that was just about ripe to overflow in a very dangerous way as one of the richest athletes in the world at the height of his success how exactly did boris becker squander his vast 170 million dollar fortune so badly that he now sits in jail because of it as you can imagine the problems began way earlier than most realize though the absolute ridiculousness of becker's financial story throughout the past 30 odd years truly has no bounds we'll keep it as concise as possible starting exactly where you might expect wimbledon 1985. unseated and relatively unknown at this point the german teenager was thrust into the international spotlight when he won wimbledon at just 17 years of age holding the record to this day as the youngest ever male player to win the title consequently the famously level-headed and focused german who had initial plans to return to school attend university and learn something respectful if tennis had not worked out didn't quite understand what to make of the sudden fame and celebrity status thrust upon him becker was paraded through the streets of germany to the tune of boom boom boris a hit new wave song celebrating the victory of the wonderkin teen whose wimbledon victory revitalized interest and tennis throughout the country as his newfound popularity eclipsed that of any actor or pop star flush with prize winnings and stardom becker's continued success throughout the 80s surprised many skeptics as in defiance to preconceived notions the german revealed in a 1986 magazine interview that he wasn't playing tennis for the money but for the love of the sport itself instead donating a significant amount of his proceeds to charity of course boris was not an infallible machine and the german later admitted that despite having won multiple grand slam titles a davis cup title for his country and the world number one ranking all by 22 years of age he had by that time already been looking for the next big thing and that wasn't professional tennis in fact it appeared for a while there wasn't an industry that becker wouldn't touch initially treading familiar waters with tennis commentating roles on the bbc and the creation of his own tennis racket and apparel company and later acting as ambassador or team member to various poker platforms while simultaneously dipping his toes into real estate video production even organic food businesses most notably he coached novak djokovic from 2014 to 2016. from which djokovic's 2015 season has retrospectively been dubbed one of the most dominant tennis seasons on record possessing a purported 170 million dollar fortune stemming from endorsements prize money and other business ventures it might have been easy for an uninformed person to judge boris becker's career as an outright success a model of which any upcoming sportsman or businessman should have aspired to emulate in retrospect of course the model in question was no shortcut to success but a b-line to bankruptcy and it became so in some of the most ridiculous ways possible starting with his relationships in 1993 boris becker married the german model and aspiring actress barbara feltus a relationship that spurred heated and many times racist tinged criticisms due to feltus's mixed-race ancestry regardless the couple forged onwards producing two children eventually attaining the perception by the general public as that of a glamour couple liberal-minded poster parents whose steadfast union proudly exemplified love over hate behind the scenes however the pair's love had supposedly fizzled many years prior with the strained relationship later being seen as one of the causes behind becker's mid-career slump though an amicable divorce would have been titled feltus to a two and a half million dollar payout as per their preneptal agreement a phone call from a woman in the year 2000 was about to turn the tennis star's checking account inside out by becker's own account following his 1999 wimbledon loss to pat rafter in what was to be becker's last professional match the german had a one-night stand with another woman a russian waitress by the name of angela irmakova in the broom closet of london's nobu restaurant as you might expect irmakova became pregnant with becker's child and phoned his house one year later pressing for five million dollars in child support it was barbara not boris who answered the phone that day following a series of charges and counter-charges that resulted from the ensuing divorce barbara instead received a 14.4 million settlement their condo on fisher island florida and custody of their two children though becker initially denied paternity of irmakova's child with his lawyers reportedly claiming that the waitress had perhaps stolen his dna and impregnated herself after the fact he eventually reversed his stance and accepted fatherhood of his daughter agreeing to make payments that eventually totaled two million dollars compensation packages of course that did not include years of eventual child support for all three children in boris's own words the most expensive five seconds of my life now his personal relationships weren't the only ones facing disaster as becker's business relationships had also taken a nasty turn for the worse following a failed early venture into sportgate a bankrupted.com era sports website in which becker had pledged 1.5 million euros becker founded his own internet tv channel boris becker tv a website which itself went defunct not long after its founding further entrepreneurial fumbles include a failed organic food firm a non-starter mega project in dubai titled the boris becker business tower the backers of whom went out of business in 2011 and purportedly even questionable investments in the nigerian oil and gas industry where leaked documents appear to reveal that he may have lost up to 10 million dollars on this gamble alone despite becker's continued terrible rate of return on investments christian schumer's who co-wrote becker's 2013 biography life is not a game has stated he still lives at the same standard he enjoyed as an active tennis professional when the millions were flowing from expensive rents or holidays to ibiza even though he has a home on mallorca through to expensive meals cigars whiskey on top of that he is extremely generous so boris becker was clearly not in the best financial shape but would you believe me if i told you that everything we've covered thus far were the least of boris's problems let's talk about taxes like many western european countries germany imposes a fairly high personal income tax for its residents requiring its top earners to pay 45 of all personal income back to the country and not unlike the countless number of professional tennis players still continuing to do so boris decided to take up residency in monaco a tax haven country to keep a significantly higher percentage of his winnings the only catch he had to physically reside in monaco when not playing tennis seems simple right well it was revealed in 2002 that becker had deliberately made false statements on his tax returns finally admitting following a lengthy investigation that for years he had resided not in monaco but munich the result of which meant he owed the german government 3.3 million deutsche marks in back taxes though authorities had attempted to put becker behind bars for this he got away with a two-year suspended sentence and 500 000 euro fine while rampant rumors swirled in the year since regarding becker's dire financial situation it wasn't until 2017 that new revelations revealed just how disastrous the whole charade had become when he was declared bankrupt by british court over an unpaid loan of nearly five million dollars on his estate in majorca spain a derelict mansion reportedly lived in by squatters and an unpaid personal loan worth 1.6 million dollars that carried an astounding 25 interest rate so becker having made one poor decision after another accepted responsibility and agreed to the terms not quite becker's lawyers argued he had diplomatic immunity in the bankruptcy case due to his appointment as the central african republic's attached for sports in the european union huh though becker had never been to the central african republic his supposed role under article 31 of the 1961 vienna convention on diplomatic relations was argued to give him diplomatic immunity from bankruptcy proceedings yeah well long story short the car's foreign minister countered that becker was not an official diplomat for the central african republic that the role of attache for sports did not exist and that the car passport produced by becker was one from a batch stolen in 2014 with all hail mary's finally extinguished the bankrupted becker was forced to sell his properties and auction off all trophies and memorabilia won during his once illustrious career to pay off the outstanding debts a simple set of tasks made complicated when becker was found to have illicitly and vesseled out hundreds of thousands of dollars into the accounts of his ex and estranged wives in an attempt to hide it from creditors in addition to hiding an additional 825 000 euro bank loan shares in a tech firm and failing to declare a property four separate charges under britain's insolvency act that in april 2022 landed becker a two and a half year prison sentence as of this video's release it was reported that becker was granted permission to watch wimbledon from his jail cell a jail located just kilometers from the court on which he once ruled the tennis world but while becker's reputation may have been permanently ruined it's impossible to deny the aura of confidence he exhumed during his biggest spending days a sense of invincibility shared by tennis's biggest stars achieved not only with how 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Channel: CULT TENNIS

Views: 1,098,354

Keywords: Boris Becker, Boris Becker bankrupt, Boris becker jail, Boris Becker tennis, Boris Becker wives, Boris Becker Wimbledon, boris beker, boris becer, cult tennis, cult tennis Boris Becker, Angela ermakova, Anna ermakova, Lilly Becker

Id: zlIndVj64Sc

Length: 11min 18sec (678 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 04 2022