Top 7 richest EFL Championship owners and how they made their money | OneFootball

Football League World takes a look at the seven richest owners in the Championship and how they amassed their respective fortunes

The embarrassment of relative riches throughout the Championship is an ever-increasing talking point as clubs up and down the division continue to amplify their spending efforts across recent transfer windows in a desperate bid to reach the promised land.

Whereas those in receipt of the Premier League's generous three-year mandated parachute payment packages have always been able to summon that luxury and the welcome influx of cash from sanctioning high-profile sales, much is changing across the divisional sphere as a whole, with an elevating number of sides of a more modest standing showcasing their ability to splash the cash.

It's no secret that there are some seriously rich owners in the Championship financing these pushes, but who are the wealthiest? And how did they make their fortune in the first place? Football League World takes a look...

7 ? ? John Coates - Stoke City

It's much more surprising that John Coates is only the seventh-richest owner in the Championship considering what we know about his family's vast wealth and the expenditure that Stoke City have been able to explore in recent years despite long occupying mid-table mediocrity following relegation from the Premier League in 2018.

The Coates family have owned the Potters for more than 20 years now, and an ownership shift occurred in 2024 when John Coates succeeded his father Peter as the club's outright owner.

Coates himself is worth an estimated £2.3 billion, having made the vast majority of his wealth from being a co-founder of renowned gambling company Bet365 alongside sister Denise back in 2021 after initially training as a lawyer.

He's now the one pulling the strings and making things happen at the Bet365 Stadium, and hasn't shied away from ploughing significant investment into the transfer market in particular.

6 ? ? Ruben Gnanalingam - QPR

Ruben Gnanalingam (second left), QPR majority owner

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QPR have found stability under the current ownership group led by Ruben Gnanalingam, with the Malaysian businessman believed to own just under 60 per cent of the club alongside smaller-scale stakeholders in Richard Reilly and ex-chairman Amit Bhatia.

Gnanalingam is a more elusive figure than many Championship owners and some details remain unknown including his personal wealth, although he comes from strong financial stock and his family's wealth is said to be around £2.3 billion, according to Forbes.

The Gnanalingam family wealth is courtesy of Westports Holdings, of which the QPR chief is the executive chairman and group managing director. Co-founded by his father, Westports Holdings is based in the strait of Malacca and operates one of Asia's largest ports, meaning the level of wealth accumulated should really come as little surprise.

Gnanalingam junior has held the role of the company's CEO since 2015, and QPR fans will hope that their spending in the market can increase in the windows to come as Julien Stephan strives to take the West London outfit back towards the Premier League following a lengthy absence.

5 ? ? Steve Lansdown - Bristol City

A more surprising inclusion arrives in the form of long-serving Bristol City owner Steve Lansdown, who can call upon vaster riches than many would assume despite limited and contentious investment into the Robins' playing squad over recent years.as a

Having served as chairman of the West Country club since 2002 before ounding Bristol Sport alongside coupling his Ashton Gate ownership duties with majority shareholding roles with both Bristol Bears and Bristol Flyers, Lansdown was able to purchase his boyhood club outright after making his billions in financial services entrepreneurship - helping to amass an impressive net worth of £2.38 billion.

Now aged 74, Lansdown co-founded Hargreaves Lansdown in 1981 and the company would go on to become among Britain's most successful investment services, floating on the London Stock Exchange before he shrewdly reduced his stake over the years to collect some eye-watering sums of money.

That level of wealth hasn't always been reflected in the Robins' transfer activity, although Lansdown has been vital for the club's progressive long-term growth by undertaking the impressive £40 million redevelopment of Ashton Gate and investing in a now-prosperous academy system.

4 ? ? Michael Eisner - Portsmouth

Perhaps the most intriguing wealth origin story across all Championship owners is provided by Michael Eisner, with the American businessman boasting a vast fortune that Portsmouth are now beginning to see reflected in the market after increased spending in the most recent window.

As reported by the Los Angeles Business Journal in 2024, Eisner has accumulated a net worth of $3.8 billion (£2.83 billion) and that, once again, should hardly come as a shock when looking at the previous roles held by the now-84-year-old.

Eisner worked his way up the television industry to take on lucrative high-profile roles with NBS, CBS and ABC prior to becoming Paramount Pictures' president between 1976 and 1984.

Then, Eisner would depart for the glamour of the Walt Disney Company, where he served as chairman and chief executive officer for more than 20 years, in which he oversaw a well-documented revitalisation of the company's animation studios with big hits from the likes of The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King within a five-year time-span while also expanding their domestic and global theme park franchises.

He left Disney in 2005 and would then complete a surprise purchase of Portsmouth in 2017, with Pompey going from strength to strength under his ownership by returning to the Championship two years ago.

3 ? ? Joshua Friedman - Charlton Athletic

Joshua Friedman, meanwhile, is the majority shareholder of the Global Football Partners consortium that completed a takeover to purchase Charlton Athletic from Thomas Sandgaard in the summer of 2023 - and he's one of the richest owners in the Championship.

Official net worth estimates of Friedman aren't easy to come by, although there are solid claims of a $5 billion valuation and Charlton have shown their boardroom riches since returning to the second-tier last year.

Friedman secured his wealth by succeeding as a co-founder of hedge fund company Canyon Pateners in Los Angeles, which he co-founded in 1990 and later earned awards for his work.

It's a similar business and financial trajectory to many American figures within the EFL ownership scene, in which Friedman brings one of the strongest fortunes.

2 ? ? Daniel Kretinsky - West Ham

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There's a vast hike in wealth as we move on to West Ham, where significant change has occurred regarding the club's ownership structure in recent times.

With ex-chairman David Sullivan relinquishing his power amid well-documented controversies and legal battles away from the boardroom, the stake of Kretinsky and his consortium has elevated from 27 per cent to 43 per cent.

The Czech businessman has significant funds behind him, too, with his estimated wealth of $10 billion making him the second-richest owner in the Championship right now.

Kretinsky has had many ventures outside of football and initially worked as a lawyer before becoming a 40 per cent-shareholding chairman of Sparta Prague in 2004 and later going on to act as chairman at Czech energy company Energetický in 2009. He then took on the same role with EP Industries two years later and would subsequently invest into various companies, such as French newspaper Le Monde, Sainsbury's and Foot Locker, having first acquired a stake in West Ham five years ago.

1 ? ? Fosun International - Wolves

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The mantle of the richest ownership at Championship, however, goes to Wolves, who have significant financial resources at their disposal even if the club's controlling group remain largely unpopular with Old Gold supporters.

Fosun International's decade-long reign of power at Molineux has been a rollercoaster journey, with eye-watering investment initially sending the club into the Premier League under now-Hammers boss Nuno Espirito Santo and later towards top-half finishes in the top-flight and runs in European competition.

A lot has changed since then, though, and Wolves will now be desperate to occupy the same place in the Championship table as they do when looking at the wealthiest second-tier owners.

Made up of majority shareholder Guo Guanchang, Fosun Group CEO Wang Qunbin and executive chairman Nathan Shi, Fosun's net worth is not publicly known although reports have indicated that the collective valuation of the Chinese conglomerate is to the tune of £20.53 billion.

Fosun accumulated its wealth by beginning as a small market research firm during the 1990's before expanding into a huge global conglomerate - and one of the largest of its kind in China - through a range of domestic and international investments, with the company now located in more than 35 different countries.