Ex-Man United star Wes Brown – who earned £50,000-a-week as a player – speaks out for the first time since being declared BANKRUPT after divorce from his wife, as he admits he never had the ‘right people’ around him

Former Manchester United defender Wes Brown has opened up on his struggles after being declared bankrupt last year.

Brown made 362 appearances for United after coming through the club’s academy and earned £50,000-a-week as a player at one stage, but HMRC filed a bankruptcy petition against him last February, and the petition was rubber-stamped at the High Court two months later.

The five-time Premier League winner, who also won the Champions League twice and was capped 23 times by England, split from his wife Leanne, a reality TV star, in 2022, and his downfall has previously been put down to his company collapsing, bad property deals and overpaying on a farm.

Brown, 44, has now had his say on where things went wrong for him, admitting he did not have the ‘right people’ to guide him during his younger years.

‘I think the main thing is when you are making a lot of money, you need the right people, don’t you? And I would say that’s one of the things I didn’t have,’ he said on the Ben Heath Podcast.

Brown earned £50,000-a-week at Man United and won the Champions League twice but has struggled with financial woes in recent years

Brown split from his reality TV star wife Leanne (right) in 2022, and is now battling with ‘ongoing’ financial problems

‘It was a little bit different. It wasn’t lots of people you go and speak to and you maybe meet people and do this do that. I wasn’t interested in any of that. You said yes and got on with it.

‘It’s a long story and I won’t go into the detail, but it’s stuff that happened a long time ago with certain investments and getting into stuff that as a young kid, a lot of people go into, [but] don’t really understand it. 

‘It’s what a lot of people are doing and then it came to a head last year, and that’s how it went. It’s happened and I’m just getting on with it but it’s one of those things where you hope people, especially this generation, don’t get involved in.’

Brown revealed his current predicament is still ‘ongoing’ and was asked whether anyone had ever reached out to him to ask for advice on how to avoid going down the same path.

He replied: ‘No. I’ve had a lot of players that have said “I’m in the same thing”. 

‘I won’t say names and it doesn’t necessarily mean that the same outcome will happen to them. But it’s stuff like when you’re kids you don’t really understand it anyway, you just assume a lot of people are doing it and it’s fine. That’s not your life, you’re just playing football.

Brown says current players have told him they have been dealing with ‘the same thing’ as him

‘A lot of people have been able to get themselves out of it or they’re still involved in sorting it out or whatever, but I just couldn’t. There’s not much I could do.’

Despite earning huge sums of money during his career, Brown was not one of the highest earners at Old Trafford.

Playing in a side that dominated the first two decades of the Premier League under Sir Alex Ferguson, some of Brown’s team-mates earned six times as much as him.

It has been suggested that he may have pushed the boat out too much in an attempt to keep up with his fellow United stars on larger salaries, but Brown denies that he over-spent on extravagant items.

When questioned on whether he believed he spent frivolously as a player, Brown responded: ‘Not at all. Definitely not buying this gear and that gear, no.’

Brown appeared in a bizarre video on social media where a tailor joked he ‘can’t afford a suit’, and he has insisted he is determined to remain positive despite his financial woes

Brown appeared in a bizarre social media video in January as he was seen grinning while a tailor joked that he is ‘so washed up he can’t afford a suit’ at a fitting in Hong Kong.

Whether he actually found that joke at his expense funny is unclear, and Brown conceded it has been difficult to come to terms with his financial woes, but insisted he is determined to remain positive and come through the other side. 

‘The main thing going forward for me is I’m very lucky to still be doing what I’m doing. But yeah, it’s not a nice thing,’ he added.

‘I’m not the sort of person to cry about it or moan about, I’m just going to battle on and get on with it.’