A MILLIONAIRE and ex-football owner worth £321million revealed that he left school at 16 to work in flooring before creating a dating site.
After his firm, King, behind the hit game Candy Crush, hit the stock market, Mel Morris became one of the richest men in the UK.
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The entrepreneur pocketed a fortune of around £515million which made him the joint 11th richest man in the East Midlands.
The 58-year-old born in Littleover, Derbyshire, had set up a hardwood flooring and property company in Spain after he left school aged just 16.
Morris was also behind the 1998 launch of the dating website, uDate, which sold for £100million in 2003.
He netted £20million from the sale which was later invested into King.
By 20, Morris was already a management consultant and looking to become a web entrepreneur.
Following the success of his dating site, which was down to using innovative technology with a big customer base, the millionaire was part of a consortium that took over Derby County.
The wealthy Brit also scooped up a whopping £10million after he sold his internet security company to a US company.
The entrepreneur shot into The Sunday Times Rich List with his fortune placing him among the like author JK Rowling and businessman Peter Jones.
Unlike most of Morris’ business endeavours, his time as a football owner ended in disaster.
The ex-owner revealed he blew over £200million trying to take Derby to the Premier League – before putting them into administration.
The millionaire admitted his time was a “failure” in his own eyes but also warned that football was running out of people like him willing to pay “£3m cheques every month”.
Morris opened up about his shock decision to put Derby into administration and said: “It is not something we entered into lightly.
“There wasn’t a long-term sustainable position without a purchase.
“I was going to run out of money completely, every asset I’ve got. You have got to pick a moment. And we have people interested.
“I wanted to find a purchaser for the club and that continues. Over the weekend we had in the region of 15 inquiries. In terms of serious ones there are two or three, based on reputation, who are very serious.”
Morris feels he came close to promotion a few times, a result that would have let him sell at a profit, before the latest crash came.
He said: “I would have sooner tried and failed than not to try at all. But financially I regret it. I have lost in excess of £200m.
“I won’t make any recovery on the stadium, I will work with the administrators to make sure we get the right purchaser on board.
“I put a lot of money into the club and we have had some really good times. But ultimately I failed.”
Morris claims that a deal was close in January 2020 before the EFL queried the sale of the stadium and reveals others wanted to buy but did not produce the money.
He warned: “It has been horrendous. At a time of Covid it’s impossible to understand the impact that has. Do I have £30m of revenue or £10m?
“My biggest mistake was to say I would sell the club and not look to make a profit.
“That gave me no room to negotiate. People would come in and wait and hope the price would change.
“We are running out of owners of football clubs who will write cheques for £1m, £2m or £3m every month.”
Morris also blasted the EFL for treating Derby differently when it came to a potential points penalty for failing to pay their players – and the wrangle over their Financial Fair Play issues.
It comes after a man who left school at 16 after hating the classroom and failing exams revealed he now runs a multi-million-pound empire.
And a young entrepreneur whose business now turns over £1.5million a year shared how she left school after bullies broke her.
