Overlook the likes of Roger Federer, Lionel Messi, and Cristiano Ronaldo, as Romanian tennis legend Ion Tiriac is the wealthiest sports activities star round right this moment, with a internet price believed to be within the area of £1.2 billion – price an estimated thrice greater than Federer, Messi, and Ronaldo mixed. Tiriac, who started his tennis singles profession within the Sixties earlier than turning to males’s doubles and partnering with Ilie Nastase to win the French Open in 1970, made round £150,000 in prize cash throughout his profession. Nevertheless, it was away from the court docket that he generated his wealth, by means of intelligent licensing offers, founding the primary personal financial institution in Romania, establishing retail, insurance coverage, auto leasing, and airways corporations. Tiriac has additionally invested in actual property and is an avid automotive collector, with a museum of over 500 autos, together with uncommon and classic vehicles courting again to 1899, comparable to two Rolls-Royce Phantoms IV. Controversial from his love of looking, Tiriac is grateful for all the things he has arrange for himself, stating, “With luck I touched a tennis racket 5 days earlier than I used to be 15 years previous. It was the second that modified my life.”
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