{"id":196027,"date":"2025-10-07T20:17:18","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T20:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/196027\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T20:17:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T20:17:18","slug":"england-liverpool-legend-declared-bankrupt-over-1-5m-debts-as-serve-as-a-deterrent-warning-sent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/196027\/","title":{"rendered":"England & Liverpool legend declared bankrupt over \u00a31.5m debts as ‘serve as a deterrent’ warning sent"},"content":{"rendered":"

Company collapse and tax nightmare<\/p>\n

The bankruptcy is rooted in the collapse of Barnes\u2019 now-defunct business, John Barnes Media Limited. Liquidators revealed staggering debts, including nearly \u00a3777,000 owed to HMRC in unpaid VAT, National Insurance and PAYE. On top of that, Barnes\u2019 company still had \u00a3461,849 in unsecured debts and a \u00a3226,000 director\u2019s loan hanging over it. Barnes had already been barred from serving as a company director for three and a half years due to these financial issues, and despite chipping away at the mess with instalment payments, the hole was simply too deep, as reported by The Independent.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

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The first \u00a310k-a-week star now broke\"The<\/p>\n

The first \u00a310k-a-week star now broke<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a bitter fall from grace for the man who once made history as English football\u2019s first \u00a310,000-a-week player. Back in the late \u201880s, Barnes was the face of a new era of big money in football. Now, decades later, he\u2019s being used as a warning. The court ruling has been described as intended to \u201cserve as a deterrent\u201d to other high-profile figures tempted to ignore mounting tax and company liabilities.<\/p>\n

A history of financial fires<\/p>\n

This is far from the first time Barnes has been in the dock over his finances. Since 2010, he\u2019s faced multiple bankruptcy petitions, including one last year when HMRC hit him with a \u00a3238,000 tax bill. That case was eventually settled, but this time, Barnes has not been able to wriggle free.<\/p>\n

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‘I’ve sold everything’ – Barnes defends himself<\/p>\n

Barnes has admitted that poor advice and misplaced trust led to his downfall. Speaking on the All Things Business podcast earlier this year, he laid bare the staggering figures: “Like a lot of elite sportspeople, I got burned because I trusted people, I got caught out a couple of times and ended up losing between \u00a31m and \u00a31.5m over four years. In 2017, I began talking to HMRC about what I could do to repay what I owed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Liverpool legend also blasted what he sees as misleading reports about his financial affairs.<\/p>\n

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He added: \u201cI know how hard it is for people out there. I don\u2019t want to say there are loopholes, or that I can get away with this or that, or have people think I can be made bankrupt and keep my assets, because I\u2019ve already sold everything. I don\u2019t have any assets.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut every time something new comes up, stories appear in the press saying negative things about how I am not paying my taxes, even though I\u2019m going to court, not to be made bankrupt, but to ask for permission to keep paying.”<\/p>\n

The ex-England star, who earned 79 caps and won two league titles with Liverpool, said he didn\u2019t want working-class fans to think he was cheating the system.<\/p>\n

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“Football is a working-class sport, and I don\u2019t want hard-working people thinking I\u2019ve got all this money and I won\u2019t pay tax,” he said. “It would be easy to be made bankrupt because they can\u2019t take anything else from me.\u201d<\/p>\n

From glory to grit\"From<\/p>\n

From glory to grit<\/p>\n

Barnes\u2019 playing career was glittered with moments of magic \u2013 dazzling wing play, unforgettable goals, and a crucial role in Liverpool\u2019s dominance of the late 1980s. But his life after football has been one of relentless financial battles. The once-celebrated winger now stands as a stark reminder that even the brightest stars can fall victim to financial mismanagement, bad advice, and brutal tax realities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Company collapse and tax nightmare The bankruptcy is rooted in the collapse of Barnes\u2019 now-defunct business, John Barnes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,20919,123401,85,123402],"class_list":["post-196027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-hmrc","tag-john-barnes","tag-sports","tag-unsecured-debts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}