There's a saying that if you're in a hole, the first thing you should do is stop digging. Similarly, Boris Becker's decision to agree three years ago to a high-risk short-term loan of £2m from telecoms tycoon John Caudwell wasn't exactly the wisest decision he could have made.
Granted, it enabled the former Wimbledon champion to "juggle the demands of banks, an ex-wife and lover, and business partners while maintaining his jet-set lifestyle" for a little while longer, says David Brown in The Times. But Caudwell charged a hefty interest rate of 25%, and the loan failed to prevent Becker being declared bankrupt in June.
Becker now allegedly owes more than £54.4m. This ranges from a €38.4m debt to Swiss businessman Hans-Dieter Cleven down to £2,312 to the London Borough of Merton in outstanding council tax. The former tennis star has assets (excluding the family home) of only £481,483, including just £5,000 in his own bank account.
Subscribe to MoneyWeek
Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE
Sign up to Money Morning
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
Because of his bankruptcy, Becker "faces being forced to sell his Wimbledon trophies and has been ordered not to remove them and other memorabilia from his £7m home in London as they could be seized for auction".
Things weren't always so bad for the tennis ace, who at one point "had it all", with "six grand-slam tennis titles, models hanging off his arm and luxury houses all over the world", says Ruth Brown in The New York Post. However, even during his salad days there were hints that Becker wasn't the most responsible of people.
Indeed, "the millionaire teen quickly earned a reputation for on-court hissy fits and off-court scandals". This involved on-court antics, such as "flying off the handle, spitting at the umpire and smashing rackets" during an unexpected defeat at the Australian Open in 1987.
Most notoriously, the revelation that he had fathered a love child after a brief fling in a broom closet of a restaurant led to divorce from his wife Barbara Feltus. This ended up "costing him $25m, his luxury condo in Miami and custody of their two sons". He also had to "cough up another $1.2m" to the mother of his illegitimate daughter.
He also managed to get arrested for evading $2m in taxes in 2002 and lost money in a string of misguided business ventures, including "a sports website, an organic-food business and, more notably, a planned 19-storey high-rise in Dubai called the Boris Becker Business Tower, whose backers went bust in 2011".
Perhaps the final nail in the coffin was his decision to invest a large chunk of his fortune in Nigeria. Leaked emails suggest that "Becker Private Office, a company controlled by Becker, held extensive shares in the Nigerian oil and gas business", saysJustin Huggler in The Daily Telegraph. At one point he "considered a single investment of more than $10m (£7.6m)".
The emails also suggest that "he had extensive links outside the world of tennis that ranged from African leaders to Lakshmi Mittal, the Indian steel billionaire, and was seen as someone who could facilitate business deals". Perhaps, but as Becker's barrister admitted in court when Becker was declared bankrupt, he is "not sophisticated when it comes to finance".
Tabloid money why you should make your children watch The Apprentice
A purse belonging to Sarah Dale that was lost in the 1980s and found in a Manchester nightclub recently, shows how times have changed. It contained 12p, a £50 Midland Bank cheque card, ID, a payslip, a library card and a residents' association card.
It shows "young Sarah went out into the world, met her neighbours, borrowed and read books, had both a job to get her through university and a savings account", says Jan Moir in the Daily Mail. Life was harder back then in many ways, but it was also "more fun". "Snowflakey millennials" have "so much more in terms of choice", but are so hidebound by their technology, they don't "get out there and live."
Education minister Jo Johnson got some stick last week for suggesting that debt-ridden students should be frugal and get a job. "But I have to stick my oar in here for Bro Jo," says Johnson's sister Rachel in the Mail on Sunday. "Since when has frugal' been a trigger term or the notion of budgeting because you don't have a lot of cash to splash, offensive even shameless'?"
Look at the Queen. "She doesn't have to cut her cloth as we did," but she still scrapes leftovers into Tupperware, saves on heating bills by using two-bar electric fires and does her own washing up. "I can't be alone in longing for this admirable quality to become a national habit."
Reality television show The Apprentice is back, says Brian Reade in the Daily Mirror. This season's hopefuls, who have to impress Alan Sugar with their business plans, are a "cast of Satanic-eyed sharks whose hearts are made of such thick concrete they'd flog their dog to snuff film-makers so long as they could negotiate 25% of the profits". With Sugar "playing Freddy Krueger to his collection of evil Chucky dolls, it's a show every child should be made to watch, as a warning of the monster they could turn into".
