RACING tycoon Sheikh Mohammed has been told to pay £554MILLION in Britain’s biggest ever divorce settlement.
The ruler of Dubai and head of global racing giant Godolphin, 72, was hit with the half-a billion-pound settlement in a 73-page ruling published on Tuesday.
And as part of it, Princess Haya, 47, has been awarded £5m to ‘buy a few reasonable horses’ of her own and ‘run them for several years’, raising the possibility they could go head-to-head on the track in the future.
The judge described the couple’s ‘truly opulent and unprecedented standard of living’.
This included spending £2m on strawberries in one summer alone, the court heard.
Princess Haya was, the court heard, given £83m a year for household spending and she and the couple’s children were given access to the Sheikh’s custom-fit Boeing 747, helicopters and his £300m superyacht.
The couple split in 2019 after 16 years of marriage.
Sheikh Mohammed will have to pay £251.5m to his sixth wife as well as making ongoing payments for their children Al Jalila, 14, and Zayed, nine.
Mr Justice Moor said the further payments are underpinned by a bank guarantee of £290m to cover the children’s maintenance and security as adults.
But it is believed the actual amount they receive could be more or less depending on a few factors.
One is how long they live and also whether or not they reconcile with their billionaire dad.
The award comes after Princess Haya, the half-sister of King Abdullah II of Jordan, fled the United Arab Emirates for England in early 2019 with her two children, claiming she was ‘terrified’ of her husband.
The total award is believed to be the largest ever ordered by an English court following a divorce, exceeding the £450m awarded to Russian native Tatiana Akhmedova in 2016 following her split from businessman Farkhad Akhmedov.
The High Court was told Princess Haya, who was a regular at Royal Ascot over the years with her former husband, had not asked for an award for herself.
The court heard she asked only for her lifetime security and to compensate her for her property lost due to the end of the marriage.
As part of the order for the two children’s maintenance, the judge also awarded a holiday budget of £5.1m, an annual sum of just over £450,000 for the children’s staff and around £275,000 for their animals.
Sheikh Mohammed, whose Godolphin yard won more than £6m in racing in Great Britain alone this year, is thought to be worth around £3billion.
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