Born in Nottingham, on February 18th, 1983, Jermaine Jenas had a tough upbringing where money was sparce. By his own admission his family often ‘played hide and seek’ from bailiffs.

It was also there, growing up on a deprived council estate, where the youngster regularly encountered racism due to his mixed English and Afro-Caribbean heritage.

Football then was a release and excelling for his school team and other local sides he soon grabbed the attention of Nottingham Forest who – after a successful trial – offered the youngster a contract on turning sixteen. 

Alas, if Forest’s Premier League odds are bleak right now they were even worse back in 1999. Just a few weeks prior to Jenas signing professional forms, Forest were relegated. 

Quickly establishing himself as a box-to-box midfielder of note, however, it wasn’t long before the talented teen was hot property, with Newcastle United swooping in 2002. The £5m fee made Jenas the most expensive teenager in British football. 

The player’s time in the North-East was by and large a success, winning the PFA Young Player of the Year in 2003 and making over 250 appearances for the Magpies.

It was also while playing for the Premier League club that international recognition arrived, Jenas making the first of his 21 outings for England against Australia in a friendly.

Later, Tottenham came calling, their offer of £40,000 a week too good to turn down, but unfortunately injuries were starting to take a toll, a situation that only worsened across his eight years in North London.

One particular highlight does stand out from his spell in the capital though, with Spurs defying the football betting and finally winning a trophy in the form of a League Cup.

In 2016, aged just 32, Jenas officially retired from the game, leaving it a rich man but not as wealthy as may be imagined. 

To compensate for that, he already had a second career in mind.

How Much Is Jermaine Jenas Worth?

According to online sources, Jenas is reported to have a net worth of £2 million, a figure that presumably pales to many of his contemporaries but is still a substantial sum.

After hanging up his boots financially secure for life due to sensible investments, he entered the world of football punditry whereupon he immediately impressed with his pragmatic takes and measured co-commentary work. 

Not that Jenas is reluctant to air strong opinions when called for, whether that is criticizing VAR or offering up some contentious Premier League predictions.  

Freelancing for the likes of TNT will have no doubt been financially rewarding but it was a £200,000-a-year deal struck with the BBC that saw his earnings rocket.

As part of the ‘golden handcuffs’ agreement, Jenas regularly appears on Match of the Day along with its sadly now defunct spin-off show MOTDx. He does punditry stints for Radio 5 Live and presents The One Show three times a week.

Naturally, by becoming a household name and regularly appearing in people’s living rooms Jenas’ earning power has increased significantly and this is reflected in commercial partnerships struck beyond television and radio.

A collaboration with the clothing retailer Jacamo will have comfortably brought in a six-figure sum while elsewhere an initiative launched alongside B&Q in 2023 is designed to encourage energy saving measures for those struggling to meet their domestic bills. 

Jenas has also recently fronted a campaign promoting skincare products for dads with L’Oreal, Paris. 

The former player turned TV star lives in a large £1m home in Hertfordshire with his family and two pet dogs. 

Wife

Jenas is married to Ellie Penfold, with whom he has three children. The couple met when Jermaine was a Tottenham player.

The couple keep their personal life private, but Jermaine has commented in an interview how he fell instantly in love when he first met Ellie, but that love was not instantly reciprocated, as Ellie found him too arrogant.

He won her over and they were soon engaged, marrying two years later in 2011. They have been together ever since. 

He has called Ellie a rock who was especially supportive during his many injury problems. Down-to-earth, with little interest in football herself, she helps keeps him grounded. 

While Ellie has been a successful model in the past, little is known about her, as she never courts publicity. Her Instagram account is set to private, though she sometimes appears on the posts uploaded by her husband to his own account.

Children

Jermaine has four children – three with Ellie, and a daughter Sancha from a previous relationship, who now lives in the United States with her mother.

Jermaine and Ellie have two daughters, Geneva and Olivia, and in October 2021 welcomed their first son into the world, who they named Jacob Anthony. 

Jermaine has spoken of his pride at being a parent in the past and while the family keep a low profile, you can see the loving nature of the family on his social media posts. The ex-footballer had previously spoken about how he wanted a son, so Jacob’s arrival will have been extra special. 

The One Show

Like several other ex-footballers, Jenas has branched out and made a name for himself away from the sport that made him successful. 

Having appeared in a couple of editions, he started co-presenting the One Show on BBC One with Alex Jones in 2020, the magazine-type programme that airs on weekday evenings, discussing topical stories with live guests, a staple of British TV since 2006

Jenas found himself spending a lot more time on the famous green sofa that features on every show, after becoming an instant hit with viewers. Many commented on how they found him articulate, relatable, relaxed and well-informed.

In 2021, he was announced as a permanent host, from Monday to Wednesday each week and it was during his debut as a full-time presenter that he announced that he and Ellie were expecting another child. 
 
On one occasion, early into his tenure, he had to present a show solo due to Alex Jones falling ill and he has clearly taken to his newest challenge like a duck to water.

Match of the Day

Post-retirement Jenas immediately set about creating a name for himself as a TV football pundit. He was an ITV panellist for their Europa League coverage, and later joined BT Sport to provide analysis for live games. 

His media career eventually led to a role as a studio pundit on Match of the Day, with his calm, impartial style proving a success. It is rumoured that BBC football bosses are so impressed with him that he is being groomed as a long-term successor to main presenter Gary Lineker. 

He is sure to be interested in such a move, having previously called the Match of the Day presenting gig the biggest job in television.

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*Credit for the photos in this article belongs to Alamy*

Both Liverpool and Manchester United have been prominent fixtures within English football from the get-go, the Merseysiders winning their first league title as early as 1901, their future fierce rivals following suit a mere seven years later. 

That was an era dominated by the great Billy Meredith who inspired United to all manner of silverware and though Liverpool had fantastic teams in the days of baggy shorts and net-less goals they had to wait several decades for their own stonewall legend to emerge. 

As football resumed from the devastation of World War II, so substantial was Billy Liddell’s influence on his team they became known for a spell as ‘Liddellpool’.

Soon after, an exhilarating young side christened as the ‘Busby Babes’ lit up Old Trafford on a fortnightly basis, that was until the awful events on a Munich runway on February 6th, 1958, curtailed their immense promise.

The widespread goodwill and heartfelt admiration for how the club managed to rebuild itself – going on to win a European Cup just a decade later – in part explains how Manchester United went from being a big club to a globally renowned behemoth.

As for Liverpool, their critical turning point occurred around the same time, with the appointment of Bill Shankly. 

What came next was half a century of shared dominance, as first Liverpool enjoyed a stranglehold on English football for an entire generation, before ceding to United who did likewise.

In those fifty years, from 1963/64 to 2012/13 either United or Liverpool won the league title on 28 occasions. 

And so to the modern era, and a sustained period of struggle apiece for these huge institutions.

Though they are now routinely cast as favourites in the latest football odds and betting under Jurgen Klopp it took Liverpool 28 attempts to secure their inaugural Premier League crown. United meanwhile have consistently floundered post-Sir Alex Ferguson. 

What is interesting however, is that these years of underachievement have not unduly impacted on either club’s stature.

They still sell shirts by the millions each season. They are still held up as the standard bearers of the English game. They are still written and talked about more than any of their peers.

All of which leads us to the obvious conclusion that in the modern game results and trophies won are not everything.

Indeed when determining the scale of a football club it requires five different factors to be weighed up, these being success on the pitch; a club’s fanbase and reach; a club’s history versus the now; their commercial might; and lastly, and most abstractly, their status and standing, both domestically and around the world.

Calculating which is the bigger club therefore, from Manchester United and Liverpool, is a more difficult task than it first appears.

Regardless, let’s start with their respective returns on the pitch, with United leading the way for league championships, with 20 to Liverpool’s 19, but the Merseyside giants boasting twice as many European Cup / Champions League successes. 

Add in a welter of FA Cups and League Cups and between them they are unquestionably the most successful teams in English football.

In reality though, would a young boy or girl, looking around for a club to support, choose one based on titles won in previous eras?

Even United’s magnificent sides of the Nineties would feel sepia-tinged and too attached to the past to a ten-year-old, while Kenny Dalglish conjuring up magic on a muddy field would be positively prehistoric. 

No, it’s who they are now that truly matters, to a player weighing up signing for either club, or to a potential new supporter. And in this regard, Liverpool are lightyears ahead of their major rival.

Revitalised under Klopp, the Reds have a clear identity and a winning formula that derives from an exciting, attacking brand of football. Watching them as a neutral, it is hard not to be seduced by it all.

By stark comparison, and as previously stated, United have floundered this last decade, searching in vain for an identity and never more than a couple of defeats away from their next crisis.

After assessing their successes on the pitch and their histories – both of which are storied and esteemed – to the now, at this juncture, Liverpool edge it as the bigger club.

Turning our attention to their respective commercial heft though tilts the contest back to an even keel. 

Forbes values Manchester United as the second most valuable club in the world, it’s £4.9 billion valuation based not on what takes place on the Old Trafford pitch but on the aggressive, highly competent work done off it.

For having long recognised that they are a brand as much as a football club, United have considerably strengthened their position in the market place in recent years with a slew of business partnerships, with everyone from noodle companies to luxury car manufacturers. 

To put some context on that, across 2023/24, it is estimated that the club will bring in $324m in sponsorship revenue, a figure unsurpassed in the British game.

Moreover, this is a club that saw the value in expanding their brand recognition into then untapped territories long before others did, ingratiating themselves with Australia, Asia and the US and in doing so becoming the footballing version of the New York Yankees. 

In the last financial year, they brought in £113.3m from merchandise sales alone, a great deal of it purchased overseas.

It should be said that Liverpool are hardly slouches in this regard either. To United though they pale. 

Which, in a roundabout way, leads us to their fan-bases, both colossal and far-reaching, but again it’s United who come out on top.

A recent study concluded that the Red Devils have 82 million online fans, compared to 45 million Liverpool followers, while United’s own website insists they have a ‘global community of 1.1 billion’ supporters.

We can quibble about how sincere some of that support is but that would only be reductive. The plain truth is that in terms of reach, nobody compares to the Mancunian reds.

And this leads us directly to the final consideration, that of each club’s standing.

Ask a random stranger in Jakarta or Brisbane to name an English club and who would they say, United or Liverpool?

Ask a fan of a club that has just achieved promotion from the Championship where they are most looking forward to visiting next season and would the answer be Old Trafford or Anfield? Granted, the second response is more negligible but still, United win out.

If the question concerns who is currently more admired for their footballing ability then it’s a different story. But Manchester United is England’s biggest club, in so many ways.

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*Credit for the photos in this article belongs to Alamy*

• Gary Lineker is one of the most famous football presenters on television

• Lineker scored 48 goals for England, making him the nation’s third highest goal scorer

• The Match of the Day presenter agreed to take a £400,000 pay cut recently

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If you’re familiar with betting on football, you’ll be familiar with Gary Lineker. One of the most recognisable faces in the sport, Lineker is here, there and everywhere.

An expert at hitting the right tone, Lineker is the best football broadcaster around. In terms of longevity, he is the presenter that aspiring youngsters look up to.

Much has been made of Gary Lineker salary figures over the years but there is no doubting that he is exceptionally talented. He sets the benchmark for broadcast journalism.

Without further ado, it is time to dive into Lineker’s net worth and personal life. A football icon around the world, he will be sorely missed when he eventually decides to step down.