MICAH RICHARDS has fired a warning to football’s budding superstars over the dangers of becoming rich overnight by revealing his worrying spending habits as a youngster.
The retired defender-turned-Sky Sports pundit burst onto the scene at Manchester City in 2005 – signing a big-money contract in the same year – aged just 17.
Richards revealed he came into so much money overnight he impulsively spent it.
The fan-favourite pundit bought supercars, a luxury mansion in the footballers’ paradise of Hale and even splashed out over £100,000 on a single night out.
Speaking to The Athletic, Richards explained: “Imagine going from £500 a week to £5,000 a week… and then going from £5,000 a week to £50,000 a week.
“Then you’d get bonuses, appearance money, a signing-on fee that was spread over the length of the contract.
“I remember one pay packet was like “£250,000 for a month. I was at the training ground, just looking at my payslip, thinking, ‘Wow. How?’
“What can you do? I know what I did. I went straight out and bought myself a Ferrari.
“I already had a Range Rover and an Aston Martin, but I thought, ‘It’s time’. I bought myself a Ferrari, an F430. Then a 458 Speciale.”
But the spending didn’t stop with cars. Richards continued: “I started to look at houses in Hale.
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“I bought this £3m, seven-bedroom house and I was living with two brothers, two cousins, my best mate.
“Where I was living was already more than enough, but this is what happens when you’re a footballer.
“It’s always, ‘Who has the best house? Who has the best car?’.
“You can never just be content. You’ve always got to want more.”
Richards went on to reveal he would spend between £20,000 and £30,000 on nights out in London and Manchester.
And he remembers going even bigger during a lavish night out with pals in Los Angeles – a night which ultimately put an end to his outrageous spending.
On his LA party, Richards revealed: “That [night] was over $150,000 in a night…
“It was so over the top and we would be throwing in tips and we just wanted the biggest bottle [of Champagne] – it was just short of $100,000.
“And it was at that moment my mindset changed.
“I’d booked to go for a month, but I came home after three weeks, saying, ‘I can’t do this anymore. I can’t. I’m going to end up with no money’.”
Richards would spend a decade in the Man City first-team after working his way through the youth ranks, helping the club win their first Premier League title in 2011-12.
He joined Aston Villa in 2015 but made just 26 top-flight appearances in four years before hanging up his boots in 2019.
In all, Richards earned 13 England caps between 2006 and 2012 – with ten of those coming in 2007.
