Game, set and cash to the bank! Becker goes bust over £3m debt
HE amassed a fortune of tens of millions of pounds after first winning Wimbledon aged 17.
But Boris Becker – the fifth highest on-court earner in tennis history – was yesterday declared bankrupt in London over a debt of £3.34million owed to a private bank.
He may even have to take a break from commentating on Wimbledon, which begins in a fortnight, to attend a meeting at the Insolvency Service to reveal in full his debts and assets.
It seems a series of relationship break-ups – including a multi-millionpound pay-out over the daughter he famously conceived in a restaurant broom cupboard – and poor investments are to blame.
Interest on his debt is rising by £677 a day. And he is being asked for an additional £51,000 in costs, which itself is climbing by another £11 a day in interest.
Lawyers for Becker, 49, said he was perfectly able to pay the money owed and simply needed a couple of weeks to raise a £5million mortgage on his nine-bedroom villa in Spain, but their pleas were rejected by the Bankruptcy and Companies court.
Registrar Christine Derrett agreed to make him bankrupt in response to a request from the Arbuthnot Latham bank. She said she was ‘not persuaded that the evidence before me can be described as credible evidence’ that Becker could raise enough to pay his debts.
During the half-hour hearing about the loan of £3,090,000 Becker had taken out two years ago, the registrar said of Becker: ‘One has the impression of a man rather burying his head in the sand.’
She added that there was ‘no evidence of other personal assets sufficient to discharge the debt’.
Told that it was clearly in Becker’s interests to pay off his debt as soon as possible, the registrar said: ‘He should have thought of that a long time ago.’
The three-time Wimbledon champion was not in court, but his barrister John Briggs had said on his behalf that the celebrity was ‘not a sophisticated person when it comes to finances’.
He said the star had ‘approval at a local level’ to secure a mortgage on the Spanish home, and could use that money to pay his UK debts. But counsel for the Arbuthnot Latham bank, Matthew Abraham, objected that Becker had previously secured an adjournment from a hearing in April – and said there was nothing concrete to suggest the Spanish mortgage would materialise.
Becker lives for part of the year in Wimbledon with his second wife Lilly, 40, and their son Amadeus, but is now understood to have his main residence in Switzerland.
There have been rumours in his native Germany for more than five years that he is in financial difficulty, and he has lost a string of court actions over unpaid debts, including a bill of £2,235 from the clergyman who conducted his marriage to Swiss-Surinamese Lilly in St Moritz in 2009. Last night Becker said: ‘I was surprised and disappointed that Arbuthnot Latham chose to bring these proceedings against me.
‘This order relates to one disputed loan which I was due to repay in full in one month’s time. My earnings are well publicised and it is clear that I have the means to repay this debt.
‘The value of the asset in question far exceeds the debt owed to Arbuthnot Latham. I intend to make an application to have this order set aside immediately.’
The German rose to fame in 1985 when he won Wimbledon for the first time. These days he works as a motivational and after-dinner speaker, with a starting price of £20,000, as well as a commentator for the BBC and other channels.