Ian Wright Bio, Age, Height, Education, Parents, Wife, Kids, BBC, ITV, The Premier League, Net Worth

Ian Wright Biography

Ian Wright is an English television and radio personality and former professional footballer. He works as a pundit for BBC Sport and ITV Sport. After retiring, he has been active in the media, usually in football-related TV and radio shows. Ian also played in the Premier League for West Ham United, the Scottish Premier League for Celtic and the Football League for Burnley and Nottingham Forest.

Ian Wright Age

He was born on 3rd November, 1963, Woolwich, England.

Ian Wright Height

He stand at a height of 5 feet and 9 inches.

Ian Wright Education

He had little formal education and left school before he took any exams to become a plasterer’s labourer.

Ian Wright Parents

Ian was born to Nesta(mother), his father was absent from a young age, and he was brought up by his mother(Nesta) and an abusive stepfather.

Ian Wright Sibling

Ian Wright grew up alongside his brothers Maurice and Nicky in the South Eastern London towns of ‘Brockley and Crofton Park’ as well as Honor Oak Estate.

Ian Wright Wife

Wright adopted the son of his then girlfriend Sharon Phillips (Shaun, born 1981) and had another child with her (Bradley, born 1985). They both went on to become professional footballers. He also had a son, Brett, with another girlfriend. Shaun and Bradley have both played for the New York Red Bulls, while Brett had a trial with Reading in September 2005 and played for their reserve team. His son, Stacey is a keen rugby player and attended Whitgift School in Croydon.

Ian Wright Children

Ian has four children, Shaun Wright Phillips, Bradley Wright Phillips, Stacey Wright, Brett Wright.

Shaun Cameron Wright-Phillips (born 25th October, 1981) is an English former professional footballer who played as a winger. He played in the Premier League and Football League for Manchester City, Chelsea and Queens Park Rangers, in Major League Soccer for the New York Red Bulls, in the United Soccer League for the New York Red Bulls II and Phoenix Rising FC, and at senior international level for the England national team.

Bradley Edward Wright-Phillips (born 12th March, 1985) is an English former professional footballer who played as a striker. He began his career with Manchester City in the Premier League, before spending the remainder of his time in England in second and third tiers with Southampton, Plymouth Argyle, Charlton Athletic, and Brentford. Wright-Phillips joined the New York Red Bulls halfway through the 2013 season.

Ian Wright Media Pundit: BBC, ITV & The Premier League

At the age of 21, Wright played for Bermondsey-based amateur Sunday league club Ten-em-Bee. In 1985 Wright was signed by semi-professional Greenwich Borough and got paid £30 a week. After just six or seven matches, he was spotted by a Crystal Palace scout after a tip-off from Dulwich Hamlet manager Billy Smith and was invited for a trial at Selhurst Park. Having impressed then-manager Steve Coppell, he signed a professional contract for Crystal Palace in August 1985.

Ian signed for Arsenal in September 1991 for £2.5m, which at the time was a club record fee. He scored on his debut against Leicester City in a League Cup tie, produced a hat-trick on his league debut against Southampton, and in the final match of the season, scored another hat-trick against the Saints to take his total to 31 goals in all competitions. Wright’s 29 league goals (24 for Arsenal, 5 for Palace) were enough to make him the league’s top scorer.

In July 1998, Wright moved to West Ham United for £500,000. He spent fifteen months as a West Ham player, scoring the winner on his debut against Sheffield Wednesday, without reaching the same form he had at Arsenal. During his spell there he made headlines when he vandalised the referee’s dressing room at Upton Park after being sent off during a match against Leeds United. He had subsequent short spells at Nottingham Forest, Celtic, and Burnley before retiring in 2000.

Wright was overlooked for the 1990 World Cup but was handed his England debut by manager Graham Taylor in February 1991. He started in the 2–0 victory against Cameroon at Wembley and helped England reach the finals of Euro 1992 in Sweden. Despite the fact that his international career spanned eight years, 87 matches and three full-time managers, he only started 17 times and was a used substitute in 16 matches.

Ian began his television career as a guest host on Top of the Pops. He was later signed up by ITV to present his own chat show, Friday Night’s All Wright, where he interviewed celebrities such as Elton John, Mariah Carey and Will Smith which ran for two seasons. He also starred in Ian Wright’s Excellent Adventure in which he travels to Greenland with a friend, ‘Mrs C’, to scale the highest mountain in the Arctic. He also appeared as a “celebrity hijacker” in the television series Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack.

He presented Football Behind Bars, a reality TV series aired on Sky1 about his programme to socialise young men incarcerated at Portland Young Offenders Institution in Dorset by organising them in a football academy. The program was an experiment with the prison authority with an eye to expanding it to other prisons if it was successful. The series ran 6 episodes, aired weekly from 7 September to 12 October 2009.

Since his retirement from football, Wright appeared as a pundit on BBC Sport’s International Match of the Day and has been a pundit for the 2002 and 2006 World Cups and Euro 2004. In 2013, he joined BT Sport as a studio analyst for their coverage of the Premier League, FA Cup, UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League. Since 2014, Wright has also been a regular studio pundit, along with Lee Dixon, for all England matches on ITV, and was one of the main studio pundits for their coverage of 2014 FIFA World Cup and Euro 2016.

Wright left BT Sport in 2017 to increase his role at the BBC, regularly appearing on Match of the Day and Match of the Day 2, as well as continuing to co-host the 606 phone in show on Sunday evenings alongside Kelly Cates. Wright also now co-hosts 5 Live Sport on a Monday evening alongside Mark Chapman on BBC Radio 5 Live. He also appears every Tuesday on The Debate on Sky Sports’ Premier League channel, once again teaming up with Kelly Cates.

In his playing career, Wright was sponsored by the sportswear company Nike, and appeared in Nike commercials. In October 1992, Ian Wright featured on the first TV commercial for Nike in the UK, Nike “Kick it” was Nike first TV commercial for Football. In 1996, he starred in a Nike commercial titled “Good vs Evil” in a gladiatorial game set in a Roman amphitheatre. Appearing alongside football players from around the world, including Ronaldo, Eric Cantona, Luís Figo, Patrick Kluivert, Paolo Maldini and Jorge Campos, they defend “the beautiful game” against a team of demonic warriors, which culminates with Cantona striking the ball and destroying evil.