Wes Brown, a former defender for Manchester United, has talked about his difficulties since filing for bankruptcy last year.

After going through the United academy, Brown made 362 appearances for the team and at one point earned £50,000 per week as a player. However, in February of last year, HMRC filed a bankruptcy petition against him, and two months later the High Court approved the petition.

The five-time Premier League champion, who also won the Champions League twice and earned 23 caps for his country, divorced reality TV actress Leanne in 2022. His firm failing, poor real estate dealings, and overpaying for a farm have all been blamed for his demise in the past.

Now that he has had some time to reflect, 44-year-old Brown has acknowledged where he went wrong, stating that he did not have the “right people” to mentor him when he was younger.

“I believe the most important thing is that you need the right people when you are wealthy, isn’t that right?” And on the Ben Heath Podcast, he stated, “I would sаy that’s one of the things I didn’t have.”

Wes Brown has spoken out for the first time after being declared bankrupt last year

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

Brown won the Champions League twice while earning £50,000 a week at Manchester United, but in recent years, he has struggled with money problems.”It had a slight variation. There weren’t many people you went to talk to, met, and did this and that. None of it piqued my curiosity. You accepted and carried out the task.I won’t go into the specifics of the long narrative, but it involves certain investments and getting into things that many people get into when they’re young but don’t fully comprehend. 

“This is what many people are doing, and last year it reached a breаking point.” 

“It’s something you hope people, especially this generation, don’t get involved in,” the speaker said, “but it happened and I’m just getting on with it.”

Brown said that his current situation is still “ongoing” in response to a question about whether anyone has ever contacted him to seek guidance on how to avoid taking the same turn.

“No,” was his response. Many players have expressed to me that “I’m in the same thing”. 

I won’t nаme them, and it doesn’t follow that they will experience the same thing.

However, there are things that, when you’re young, you just assume are OK since a lot of people do them and you don’t really understand them anyhow. It’s only football; that’s not your life.

According to Brown, current athletes have informed him that they are going through “the same thing” as he is.

Many others have managed to escape it, are actively working to resolve it, or have found other solutions, but I was never able to. Not much that I could do.

Even though he made enormous sums of money throughout his career, Brown wasn’t the best paid player at Old Trafford.

Some of Brown’s teammates made six times as much money as him while he was a member of the club that Sir Alex Ferguson led to dominance in the Premier League for the first twenty years.

Although it has been speculated that he might have gone overboard to match the salaries of his teammates United players, Brown disputes that he overspent on ostentatious goods.

In response to a query about whether he thought he spent carelessly while playing, Brown said, “Not at all.” Without a doubt, I won’t be purchasing this and that equipment.

In January, Brown made an odd appearance on social media when he was pictured smiling during a fitting in Hong Kong, amid jokes from a tailor that he is “so washed up he can’t afford a suit.”

Brown made an odd appearance on social media in which a tailor made fun of him saying he “can’t afford a suit,” and he has stated that he is trying to stay upbeat in spite of his financial difficulties.

It’s unclear if Brown thought that joke about him was hilarious, but he did admit that accepting his financial situation hasn’t been easy. Nevertheless, he is determined to be optimistic and get through this. 

“My biggest takeaway for the future is that I consider myself extremely fortunate to be doing what I do.” However, he continued, “It’s not a nice thing.”

“I’m not the type to cry or whine about it; instead, I’m just going to figҺt through it and move on.”