Soon-to-be UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said that he would love to run Premier League club Southampton if he weren’t a politician.
Sunak is set to become the first British Asian prime minister after House of Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt withdrew from the Tory leadership contest.
The 42-year-old, who was chancellor of the exchequer under Boris Johnson, had nearly 200 Tory MPs publicly backing him in his bid to become the next PM.
Sunak, who will now be appointed PM by King Charles III, will succeed former Conservative leadership rival Liz Truss at 10 Downing Street.
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During his initial failed bid to become PM in the summer, Sunak was asked at a hustings event in Exeter what line of work he would have been in if he weren’t an MP.
The UK’s next prime minister claimed that it was his dream to be in a Star Wars movie when he was a kid.
However, the Southampton-born MP didn’t shy away from admitting that he would like to have run the Saints.
“[…] On my bucket list of life’s ambitions, well, when I was a kid, I wanted to be in a Star Wars movie, um, so that’s probably not a sensible thing to do,” Sunak said in August.
“But I’m a massive football fan, I’m from Southampton and if I would get to be able to run Southampton […].”
The lifelong Southampton fan, who claimed Matt Le Tissier was his favourite player, was met with a cheerful response from one person at the hustings event.
Sunak immediately pointed to the crowd to identify his fellow Saints fan, with the former chancellor saying he would be a “very happy man” if he could run the Premier League club.
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“Oh, wow, is there a Saints fan here? Look at that, brilliant. Well, there’s three of them. Amazing,” he said in response to one audience member’s cheer.
“Well, if I could run Southampton Football Club, I would be a very happy man.”
Topics: Southampton, Premier League, England, Football
Adnan Riaz