Danny Murphy V11 group and HMRC

[Corway]

BBC reporting Danny lost £5m through bad investments and now HMRC are demanding back tax.
Howard Wilkinson recommended a financial advice company to players
Several players in the V11 group already or about to be bankrupt.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/ar ... 7jn722rkeo

[Hibsclaret]

First world problems

[AfloatinClaret]

It sounds as if Wilkinson was being paid £2k/month for his recommendations, while the bargain priced property in Spain they were being advised to buy was owned (having been bought for far less) by a company owned by one of their advisors' wives. The tax bills are for investments (which bombed!) in the UK film and theatre, you could make using un-taxed income, with said tax only becoming payable 14 years later; useful for short term high earners provided they at least break even

[exilecanada]

I would imagine it’s safe to say these nouveau riche footballers, and probably a high percentage of the general public, are open to poor investment advise from financial ‘experts’. I would imagine these young, wealthy players have targets on their backs. Isn’t it mandatory for players to complete some sort of training course to help protect against unscrupulous advisors?

[tarkys_ears]

Poor Danny, turned to booze, drugs and gambling after losing £5m...

He should have used that £5m to fund these things, don't you think?

Might have considered a more legitimate route for his tax "avoidance".

[Tricky Trevor]

Programme on BBC2 now(9pm).

[Caballo]

Fell in to the greed trap, too much is never enough for some people.

[Oshkoshclaret]

Absolute zero sympathy. Zero.

[Boss Hogg]

I have dealt with one of these players. They do what their agents tell them even though the agent knows nothing about the subject matter. The agents control their lives almost and they follow herd mentality. There are clear warnings on a lot of the tax schemes that relief might not be available. Not seen the programme but heard Craig Short and his wife on the radio this morning. Very little sympathy.

[jdrobbo]

Really interesting documentary. It highlights the need for player protection and better education. Footballers, like many walks of life, can be incredibly naive.

[Spike]

Don’t ever invest in any unregulated investment

[Tricky Trevor]

I’m a stick it in the bank fella so have little sympathy apart from the fact they were very young, probably with no financial nouse in the family, and were defrauded.

[ClaretPete001]

It's almost as though none of us have ever been young and daft.

And we all deserve to be duped out of our money....!

[Firthy]

You can't protect people from stupidity. Maybe pay them less and then they won't have the money to squander. I bet most on here would love to have £5m to invest.

[Dark Cloud]

Much of it reads like people who had plenty of money to invest, but were somewhat naive and badly advised and didn't read the small print, particularly that which relates to "investments can go down as well as up". It also seems some of the issues relate to the 2008 crash which stuffed a lot more folks than just a few very rich footballers. However the part where the financial advisers are secretly owners of the properties they are advising people to invest in sounds very naughty and rather fraudulent and that's wrong.

[Big Vinny K]

Not sure after watching that documentary that the first conclusion you make is how stupid they all are.

As was said the managers like Wilkinson, Fergie, Graham etc were held in massive esteem and were very much the ones in charge. Someone like Wilkinson endorsing these guys would carry a lot of weight - his role in this looks dodgy to say the least and we know now that him and a number of other managers of that era were lining their own pockets through various schemes and dodgy deals.

I found it hard not to have some sympathy for the likes of Brian Dean, Rod Wallace etc.

Do also accept that greed was a big part of this but it’s just like now - where there’s big money being earned there will always be leaches who attach themselves to the players and tell them they can make them even richer and in many cases this works and word must get round amongst the players.

[Culmclaret]

If something seems too good to be true…..

[Colburn_Claret]

I don't have a fraction of what these players had, but what savings i have are spread about. Why would anyone put all their money in one basket, or should that read basket case. It makes no sense.

[billyhamilton82]

Take responsibility for your own life and educate yourself.

[dsr]

I dare say it's the same with lottery winners as it is with footballers. Apparently about 1/3 of lottery winners don't want financial advice because they' know they have more than they can ever spend so they're just going to stick it in a bank deposit account. Others take advice and invest cautiously, but others spend-spend-spend and/or seem to assume they have a moral duty to make their money grow more.

I believe they're allowed to put up to 50% of salary into a pension fund and start drawing out when they're 35, because of the short careers. Every top level club should demand that their players do this. (As perhaps they already do, but you can't force them.)

[Colburn_Claret]

I dare say it's the same with lottery winners as it is with footballers. Apparently about 1/3 of lottery winners don't want financial advice because they' know they have more than they can ever spend so they're just going to stick it in a bank deposit account. Others take advice and invest cautiously, but others spend-spend-spend and/or seem to assume they have a moral duty to make their money grow more.

I believe they're allowed to put up to 50% of salary into a pension fund and start drawing out when they're 35, because of the short careers. Every top level club should demand that their players do this. (As perhaps they already do, but you can't force them.)

Putting that much money in a pension fund would be silly. They'd still only have 12,500 tax allowance like the rest of us. They'd just be paying a fortune in tax.
They could get a much better return investing it, only spread it about rather than bet the lot on a 3 legged horse.

[ClaretPete001]

Putting that much money in a pension fund would be silly. They'd still only have 12,500 tax allowance like the rest of us. They'd just be paying a fortune in tax.
They could get a much better return investing it, only spread it about rather than bet the lot on a 3 legged horse.

As far as I know Pension contributions are taxed at the point you take the money out of the pension, which is why the Gov't want to abolish the top rate of tax relief on pensions because you can put it in on a 40 per cent tax rate and theoretically take it out at 20 per cent.

So, I guess you max out your pension and ISAs then invest in an investment portfolio.

Or do like the rest of us and play it safe by buying gilts through a pension scheme and await for the next Liz Truss to turn up to feck it all up.

[dsr]

Putting that much money in a pension fund would be silly. They'd still only have 12,500 tax allowance like the rest of us. They'd just be paying a fortune in tax.
They could get a much better return investing it, only spread it about rather than bet the lot on a 3 legged horse.

It would reduce the temptation to spend it. And putting it in a pension fund is investing it - pension funds buy the same sort of investments as any other investment fund.

(And surely putting money in a pension fund saves tax or is tax neutral? They already pay a fortune in tax.)

[jojomk1]

Seems strange to me that the PFA are never mentioned in this issue

As the players union you would have thought they would have been offering guidance in the first instance, and support after the issues came to light

Maybe naive to think that

[warksclaret]

I saw the programme and what puzzles me is surely the players saw the properties they were investing in. Did they get to own any of these properties, if so they may have deliberately been overpriced but surely there is still some equity in the property which if they were to sell it could pay off some or all of the tax burden.

[Big Vinny K]

I saw the programme and what puzzles me is surely the players saw the properties they were investing in. Did they get to own any of these properties, if so they may have deliberately been overpriced but surely there is still some equity in the property which if they were to sell it could pay off some or all of the tax burden.

They may have bought off plan
The properties may not have ever been even built.
There were a number of schemes in Spain and Portugal that went belly up before they were finished.

The programme didn’t go into this level of detail and I’m guessing that this specific investment was only part of a series of scams and poor financial advice which has led to their situations. We already know about the film industry stuff.

[ClaretPete001]

Personally, I feel quite sorry for them. When senior figures like Howards Wilkinson are giving advice what 20 odd year old wouldn't listen?

The fact that they arguably get paid too much doesn't entitle people to help themselves to their money.

[warksclaret]

They may have bought off plan
The properties may not have ever been even built.
There were a number of schemes in Spain and Portugal that went belly up before they were finished.

The programme didn’t go into this level of detail and I’m guessing that this specific investment was only part of a series of scams and poor financial advice which has led to their situations. We already know about the film industry stuff.

Fair comment big Vinny

[warksclaret]

Personally, I feel quite sorry for them. When senior figures like Howards Wilkinson are giving advice what 20 odd year old wouldn't listen?

The fact that they arguably get paid too much doesn't entitle people to help themselves to their money.

I think its fair to say that the awareness of scams, fraud and shitesters in general is far greater today than it was in the era these footballers were being conned

[jojomk1]

Seems strange to me that the PFA are never mentioned in this issue

As the players union you would have thought they would have been offering guidance in the first instance, and support after the issues came to light

Maybe naive to think that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbJLNlgmC74

[Terry Cochrane]

Howard Wilkinson has a lot to answer for. Just watched it and have to say my initial sceptical thoughts on these players changed as I watched.

I was very moved by Brian Deane when he reflected on his dead mother. Sean Davis thinking about suicide. They are victims by two ruthless smarmy conmen.

[Boss Hogg]

Having watched it through Wilkinson doesn’t come out of this well. The advisory firm clearly had a lot to answer for as there was a conflict of interest as they were involved in the schemes. Only one player seemed to point the finger at an agent but I know another of these just did whatever the agent told him regardless. Would be interested to see what incentives they had.