Steve Brown lost £200,000 in scam

Interviewed by The Athletic about Richard Rufus Steve Brown reveals that he lost £200,000 in a scam that he was introduced to by another former team mate whom he does not name.

“Every footballer has been hoodwinked by somebody,” he says. “Anywhere there’s lots of money you’ll find vultures and sharks.”

After being recruited by a former team-mate whom he would rather not name, Brown himself fell victim to an investment scam.

“I got hoodwinked in a property deal that was not a property deal,” he recalls, saying he put £200,000 towards what was supposedly an exciting new opportunity in Spain. “I never saw my money again.”

Footballers have always been well paid but it is only recently that players at smaller clubs have earned eye-watering sums which can fund a lifetime of glamour. Brown is still feeling the pinch from that bogus investment, acutely aware that that sum would have comfortably doubled in the following two decades if it had been invested sensibly.

He is comfortably off but a long way from the current Premier League stars who, even as squad players at smaller clubs, earn sums that players at teams like Charlton around the turn of the millennium could only dream of.

“Football was in that transitional period,” says Brown. “It did filter down eventually but if you were in that 1995-2005 bracket, some people were very, very well paid but some people weren’t (in comparison).”