The world’s richest footballer - whose net worth dwarfs that of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi’s combined - has opened up about the one move he regrets most in his professional career.

Faiq Bolkiah, 26, is part of the House of Bolkiah and the nephew of the Sultan of Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah. That means he is one of several heirs to a £20billion fortune - a figure greater than Ronaldo’s mammoth £640m and Messi’s gargantuan £680m net worth.

But despite never having to worry about money, Bolkiah embarked on a footballing career which, at one stage, showed plenty of promise. Born in Los Angeles, the Bruneian spent time with the youth academies of several Premier League sides.

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He kicked off his footballing career at youth level with Newbury before bouncing around the academies of Southampton, Reading and Arsenal, who he represented while on trial in the 2013 Lion City Cup, even scoring a goal. Bolkiah signed a two-year youth contract with Chelsea until 2015, had a trial with Stoke City and signed for Leicester City on a three-year pro contract in 2016, though he never made a senior appearance.

The left-winger went on to sign a deal with Portuguese side Maritimo in 2020, though he once again failed to feature for the first team and was relegated to their reserve side. He played just a single game in the Under-23s before moving to Thai club Chonburi in 2021.

Now with Ratchaburi in Thai League 1, Bolkiah has voiced regret over his decision to join Maritimo. He told Main Stand: “I had about three or four offers after Leicester.

“Maritimo said to me ‘you’ll come here, you’ll play’ so I said ‘I just want to be here for a year. The main thing for me is I want to play.’ Obviously, that didn’t happen.

“I definitely regret moving there. I feel like there was a lot of politics to do with it as well, why Maritimo wanted me. I didn’t feel like they were being fully honest.”

He went on to describe his nightmarish experience which has since inspired him to push his limits even further. “It definitely made me stronger,” Bolkiah admitted.

“It definitely made me work harder and keep my head down. That didn’t change for sure. But I definitely made the right decision to leave.

“I had another two years left on my contract there. They changed presidents at the time, I went in there and they understood my situation. It wouldn’t have done me or the club any good for me to be there longer.”

Holding both American and Bruneian citizenship, Bolkiah has represented the latter on international duty six times – scoring a single goal. While he never managed to make it in the Premier League, he played alongside the likes of Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Tammy Abraham at youth level for Chelsea, as well as Ruben Sammut, who claimed that academy players would remind him of his wealth every day.

As per The Athletic, Sammut said: "You would never ever have thought he was something like the 12th in line to the throne. You would not have thought of him as royalty. He was a humble guy, trying every day like every academy player. We used to joke he didn’t need to play football but he wanted to play because he loved football.

"It wasn’t a regular thing we mentioned. It was that typical banter, saying he is royalty, saying, ‘what’s he doing playing with us?’ But we all knew deep down how much he wanted to play, so it was more good-willed passing comments."