Former Liverpool winger Jermaine Pennant has revealed that he has frittered away £10million through a lavish lifestyle which has left him bankrupt.
Pennant was officially declared bankrupt at the start of the year because of debts to a string of creditors, including HMRC, banks, councils and utility companies, which were estimated at £1m. The 39-year-old played for Arsenal, Birmingham, Liverpool and Stoke during a 18-year professional career, yet squandered his earnings.
He owned a fleet of top-of-the-range cars, including a Ferrari F430, an Aston Martin DB9, a Lamborghini, a Porsche GTS and several Range Rovers. Pennant also enjoyed luxury holidays to places like the Maldives, Bahamas, Seychelles and Dubai, and once dropped £25,000 on a single bar tab in Las Vegas while on a lads’ holiday..
Pennant, who now lives with actress girlfriend Jess Impiazzi in Surrey, has explained how he lost his fortune in an interview with The Sun. “I bought houses but never spoke to an estate agent and had mortgages that I did not know about,” he said.
“I took bad advice from bad people and just lived day to day. There was a fixer who arranged things for me, but now I realise he swindled me out of money.”
On the advice of a fixer, Pennant paid £1.2m for a six-bedroom mansion in Cheshire in 2006 which he then forgot about after moving from Liverpool to Real Zaragoza in Spain three years later. He left the house empty, but was, unbeknown to him, still paying the interest-only mortgage on it.
The abandoned property was later broken into by a drugs gang and used as a cannabis farm. Last year, a fire ripped through the house destroying everything inside, in an incident police are investigating as arson.
While in Spain, Pennant left a Porsche parked at a train station for five months. The vehicle had a 'P33NNT' number plate, but the winger denied knowing anything about it at the time.
He now says his forgetfulness is down to a diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) linked to childhood trauma. That combination, as well as being “financially illiterate”, led to a number of poor life choices.
“I would also go out and spend money on tables at nightclubs and not worry about it,” he added. “We did two trips to Las Vegas; and on the first one I picked up a bar bill of $30,000 (£25,000) for my mates. I did not even know what was being ordered.
“I invested in horses and properties and have lost all the money. I dread to think what the total would be but I guess it would be more than £10m.”
Pennant is now a pundit for talkSPORT and, after an appearance on Celebrity Big Brother in 2018, he is set to appear in SAS: Who Dares Wins alongside ex-Health Secretary Matt Hancock.
