The Swansea ballboy who was infamously kicked by Eden Hazard in 2013 has sold his vodka business for a staggering £300million.
Charlie Morgan, 17 at the time, went viral 13 years ago when he tried to delay the then Chelsea star who was trying to grab the ball back, leading to the Belgian kicking him and being sent off.
But that 15 minutes of fame has not turned out to be his last.
Morgan, now 30, set up Au Vodka with his friend Jackson Quinn two years after the Hazard incident and they’ve now sold the business for an astonishing £300m.
Sazerac, an American spirits company, have purchased Au, which grew in popularity after being promoted by celebrities such as Floyd Mayweather and Ronaldinho.
Nine years ago, British DJ Charlie Slot invested in the brand and used his contacts in the music industry to further promote Au.
Charlie Morgan (right), the ballboy kicked by Eden Hazard (left), has sold his vodka business for £300million to an American alcohol giant
Hazard was sent off during Chelsea’s EFL Cup semi-final leg away to Swansea after he appeared to kick Morgan – though the ballboy did not realise it was the Belgian playmaker
The company has gone from strength to strength in recent years and the business moved into glitzy, ‘fully gold’ offices in their home city of Swansea.
Now they have cashed in and Sazerac chief executive Jake Wenz said: ‘Au Vodka is a brand we’ve long admired.
‘What Charlie, Jackson, and Charlie have achieved in just over a decade is spectacular and rare, and we have big plans for Au as we welcome the brand into the Sazerac family.’
Morgan even used Hazard himself to promote his vodka, sitting down for a chat with the ex-Real Madrid man two years ago.
Morgan told Hazard: ‘I remember a couple of times in that game, it was Juan Mata, who was coming across all the time.
‘I remember I chucked it over his head and different things and the fans started singing different things about the ballboy so it was a bit of a crazy one.
‘Then obviously the incident happened but the crazy thing is until I got to the changing rooms I thought it was Juan Mata who kicked me.
‘I thought all along, I thought the whole time, I didn’t know and then they said it was Hazard.’
Hazard saw red for the incident, before the duo reunited in laughter years later
Morgan, 30, is now set for life after flogging the business he set up with his friend
Hazard revealed that the discovery of the incident left his mother close to tears.
Morgan meanwhile didn’t realise the extent of how it would make him famous overnight.
He said: ‘I left that game thinking it was going to be a small thing but then on the way home – my mum picked me up from the game – she had like 20 phonecalls.
‘So for like a month it was like all the newspapers outside my house and Fox News, Sky News, like the paparazzi etc.
‘For two weeks I was super famous and then super not famous.’
Now the entrepreneur is back in the limelight after his business triumph and will never have to work again.
