Boris Becker has commented in detail on the income from his dazzling tennis career.
The figure of 25 million circulating on the Internet is to be understood “in dollars and before taxes and costs as well as percentages to management”, the six-time Grand Slam winner clarified in the “OMR Podcast”.
He took “well under 50 million marks”, said Becker. “Don’t believe every word Google says. Not everything is true there either. It’s often only my age and my name that are true when you look them up.”
But Becker also stated that he had “earned enough money”. In this context, the 55-year-old announced a new book “so that I can update my fans and my critics about what I’ve earned, what I’ve lost, what I’ve paid in taxes, also how I’m in my bankruptcy came”.
Money “never particularly interested him,” Becker explained, “to my chagrin, afterwards you’re always smarter.” He wanted to play tennis “to win Wimbledon and become number one in the world. Whether I earn anything was always secondary to me. I sometimes forgot to pick up the bonus check at tournaments.”
Tennis icon Boris Becker wants to trust his “basic instinct”.
In the conversation, Becker also defended himself against the accusation that he had been resistant to advice on business matters in the past.
“There were always many managers and consultants, maybe sometimes too many. I definitely had two or three who weren’t particularly good for me. I wasn’t resistant to advice, I had too many know-it-alls by my side.”
Today the list of people who are allowed to call him is “very short,” said Becker. “I have a great partner, a very small environment that I trust and that was by my side even in very difficult times. I want to trust my basic instinct and my experiences more than I did 15 or 20 years ago.”