Graeme Souness Net Worth - Sky Pundit Estimated Wealth

Graeme James Souness was born on May 6th, 1953, in the Scottish capital city of Edinburgh.

A footballer of substantial promise it wasn’t long before he had outgrown local side North Merchiston and English clubs came calling, Tottenham signing him on professional terms at the age of just 15. 

Nowadays, Souness can be found on Sky Sports and estimates of his salary on the television channel can be found below.

Soon after, the raw youngster informed Spurs’ legendary manager Bill Nicholson that he was the best player in North London and demanded first team action. It doesn’t take a betting genius to work out who won that particular battle. 

A move to the North-East followed, to Middlesbrough whereupon Souness established himself as a formidable presence in the centre-circle, dominating players ten years his senior. He may have been right after all when talking himself up to Nicholson.

Liverpool certainly believed he was something special, signing him for £350,000 in 1978, and it was at Anfield where Souness became a household name, captaining one of the greatest ever British sides to all manner of silverware, not least five league titles and three European Cups. 

Indeed, the safest bet on football throughout the Eighties was in backing Bob Paisley’s magnificent collective.  

Subsequent moves to Sampdoria and Rangers may have boosted his bank balance and extended his career but he will always be chiefly associated with the Merseyside Reds.

With his boots hung up, Souness switched to management, experiencing success and failure in equal measure. Regrettably, a return to Liverpool falls into the latter camp but trophies were won north of the border with Rangers and in Turkey, for Galatasaray. 

Across two decades in the dugout he managed in five different countries and improved the Premier League odds at Blackburn and Newcastle, seeing both through turbulent periods.

Tired of the arduous demands of top-level coaching, Souness transitioned to punditry, for Sky Sports and in this field he has proven a hit, casting a stern eye over the biggest matches of the weekend and never short of an opinion.

Playing football in the pre-Premier League era made Graeme Souness rich. Twenty years in management made him very wealthy.

Becoming a media figure, along with his other business interests, has ensured that the 70-year-old – having now put down the mic and left Sky – can enjoy a very prosperous retirement. 

How Much Is Graeme Souness Worth?

Estimations of Graeme Souness’ net worth range between £5m and £15m and the likeliest figure will reside near the top end of that scale.

A great many years working for RTE and later Sky will have paid a pretty penny, his insight highly valued and his propensity to spark controversy sought after. In later years at Sky his contract will have easily exceeded £500,000 per annum.

Going back to his lengthy playing career, the midfielder will have earned much less than players plying their trade today but still, from signing on fees alone, it will have comfortably secured Souness his first million. 

His managerial career meanwhile will have been more lucrative, conversely due to being dismissed from several jobs. This will have resulted in some hefty payouts.  

To offer one indication of his wealth, back in 2007, Souness was the face of a consortium pushing to purchase Wolverhampton Wanderers.

The bid was believed to be in the region of £20 million and though there were other investors, Souness’ involvement will not have required merely seed-money.

To offer another indication, he lives with his wife Karen in a large house in Poole, Dorset, just a few minutes’ walk from Sandbanks. It’s an area that, per foot, is considered the most expensive place to live in the world.  

In 2021, permission was granted to build a second luxury property in his back garden.

To put his media work in some context, here are a few Souness’ Sky Sports colleagues and their net worth.

• Roy Keane - £47 million

• Gary Neville - £28 million

• Jamie Carragher - £18 million

• Micah Richards - £10 million

Who Is Graeme Souness' Wife?

Graeme Souness is married to Karen, a former hostess on an ITV show called Sale of the Century.

The couple have been husband and wife for almost three decades, having celebrated their wedding back in 1994.

Graeme and Karen have a son together, and Graeme is a stepfather to two of Karen’s children. This was the second of Souness’ marriages after a relatively short relationship with Danielle Wilson in the 1980s.

Souness and Wilson met in 1982 and married a couple of years later. They had three children together but separated in 1989 and eventually divorced.

Children

Graeme Souness has four children and two stepchildren from his two marriages. His stepdaughter Lauren has presented for Al-Jazeera and beIN Sports and remains in the world of media today.

Souness has generally kept his finally life private, and little information has been made public about his children.

Hard Man Image

The no-nonsense Scot played during an era when physical assault would at worst result in a yellow card and Souness duly capitalised on such leeway by leaving stud-marks often on the great and the good.

In possession, he was a supremely gifted player, with a fierce shot and a broad passing range.

Without the ball, opponents got rid of it quickly, fearful of a meaty challenge.

Gaining the reputation as a hard man, Souness could play up to it on occasion, but there was sufficient substance to his infamy too, with one particular incident springing to mind when Rangers took on Steaua Bucharest.

With the ball an irrelevance, Souness stamped on an opponent thigh-high leaving even hardened Ibrox regulars wincing at the sight.

Much later, when managing Newcastle, two Magpies players came to blows on the pitch, each getting sent off. Back in the dressing room Lee Bowyer and Kieran Dyer seriously regretted their misdemeanour when Souness offered both to step outside for a brawl. 

It is a tough-guy persona that transferred well to punditry, the combative ex-midfielder pulling no punches when it came to dishing out opinions.

Whether they were harmless Premier League predictions or comments made on individual players, Souness was never afraid of going over the top. 

Controversies

No stranger to controversy, Souness forever soured his relationship with the Merseyside public when he gave an exclusive interview with the Sun newspaper as Liverpool’s manager, the piece published on the anniversary of the Hillsborough football disaster. 

The interview concerned Souness’ recent open-heart surgery and the Scot has since said the insensitive timing of the article will always be the biggest regret of his life. 

Later, as manager of Galatasaray, he took that life into his own hands by planting a club flag into the centre-circle at the home of arch-rivals Fenerbahce. 

Gala had just beaten the Yellow Canaries in a cup final and with the ‘Eternal Rivalry’ being one of the most intense derbies in world football it would probably have been wise for Souness to simply applaud the trophy-lift from the touchline, then head down the tunnel. 

Instead, deeply offended by one of Fenerbahce’s vice-presidents calling him a ‘cripple’ in the build-up to the game – referencing the manager’s heart problems – Souness inflamed an already incendiary situation by provoking the home fans with his actions. 

As a pundit too, Souness encountered negative headlines, such as when he became fixated on criticising Manchester United star Paul Pogba at every opportunity. 

So often, and strong, was the criticism that it was a talking point throughout Pogba’s time at Old Trafford. 

Graeme Souness Memes

Every Sky Sports pundit is destined to get the meme treatment at some point. Graeme Souness’ most famous meme has stood the test of time better than many others, remaining a staple on football Twitter for several seasons.

The Souness meme first appeared back in 2016. Giving a particularly fiery rant about Arsenal’s performance in defeat to Manchester United, screenshots of Souness’ face in a rage were quickly circulated around the Twittersphere.

Those images are now saved on phones all over the world for meme usage at any given moment.

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