Lottery Winning Football Fans.

Football is a game of importance. It is considered as special sports globally, and it is often not joked with. People invest in this wonderful game when any form of opportunity presents itself. There has been a record of some loyal footy fans who hit the jackpot and invested their lottery wins to support their favourite footy clubs. However, investing a huge win into a sports team is a risky thing to do.  Let’s take a look at some lottery winners who invested their jackpot into their teams, and the outcome they got from it!

Here we go.

John McGuinness.

He was a nurse before the heavens smiled down at him and he became Scotland’s biggest lottery winner in 1996.  With his winnings, he was able to make some quick plans, move out of his parents’ old apartment, marry the bride of his dreams and settle his ex-wife. He also decided to invest a million pounds into the club Livingstone F.C from West Lothian. Everything seemed to go smoothly at first, but those initial successes would not last. At first, the club earned promotion into the Scottish premier league and had high-profile friendlies against teams like Manchester United and Newcastle; however, he signed a document related to loans in 2001 and when things backfired, all that was left of his winnings quickly drained away.

Colin Weir.

Colin Weir won £161 million from the lottery in 2011.  The money seemed quite huge and with his then-wife Christine they were able to spend enough to fulfil many of their personal dreams.  They decided to invest in Partick Thistle F.C. Colin decided to donate about £375, 000 to the club, for the creation of a youth academy in 2014. It was for the sole purpose of allowing the club to develop young talents from within its confines. He supported them with further donations (up to about £2million) over the years that followed to move the academy forward. Well, it ended well for Colin Weir because Partick Thistle F.C decided to show its gratitude by making him their first official patron and naming a stand after their generous benefactor.

Paul and Thea Bristow

The donations of this generous couple also led to positive outcomes for all involved. They donated to quite a number of causes, such as a nature conservation program, local scout troop and Torquay United. The donations of Paul and Thea Bristow helped in boosting the stability of the club; they had suffered series of near misses and they were at the verge of “fizzling out”.  In 2007, Paul led some financial backers to take over the club in 2007 and through this Torquay was able to make it back to the football league at the end of 2008/2009. Paul passed away in 2010 but his wife remained adequately committed to moving the club forward and was to become a director at the club. She made sure that the club was left in a stable condition before she stepped away for medical reasons.

The emotional investments by these footy fans turned out to be quite inspiring in some instances, although as with anything connected to the beautiful game there are never any guarantees.