A market study conducted by the law firm of Oded Chen, which specializes in bankruptcy and insolvency, shows that in the last two years, about 60 past athletes in Israel have gone bankrupt and insolvent, or lost all their savings. The gray.
In the past, there have been cases such as that of footballer Alon Mizrahi, who filed for bankruptcy after accumulating a debt of NIS 1.1 million.
Itzik Zohar went through a similar process following debts of millions, and Felix Halfon ran a vending machine business after retiring, and went into huge debts.
Advocate Chen explains: “Sports players, many of whom were not accustomed to wealth as children, earned huge sums and became accustomed to a life of wealth.
After their retirement and the decline in their income, they were unable to adjust their expenses to the new level of income, and thus began to accumulate debts. "
An investigation by the firm revealed that more than half of the former players in the Premier League had lost all their money, and some had gone into bankruptcy proceedings.
Take, for example, Irish football star George Best, who has lost everything he has gained over the years due to misconduct and a decline in alcohol addiction.
Also in the players who went bankrupt during his career can be found the American goalkeeper Brad Friedel, who still plays in the Tottenham uniform, who declared insolvency after investing £ 5 million in building a football academy in his country. Another player who went bankrupt is former NBA player Alan Iverson Earned NIS 154 million a year and in 2012 announced that he was impoverished and had lost all his assets.
Even the legendary boxer Evander Holyfield, who earned $ 230 million in his career, was forced to sell the championship belt at the beginning of the millennium, only to pay off debts incurred, among other things, even following a difficult divorce proceeding. Even his sworn and famous rival Mike Tyson, who has earned hundreds of millions of dollars in his career, declared bankruptcy in 2003 following a $ 27 million debt, due to his great extravagance and various addictions.