ENGLAND legend John Barnes has been declared bankrupt after his company ran up debts of £1.5 million.
The ex-footballer, 61, saw his now-liquidated company John Barnes Media Limited, amass huge debts, according to HMRC.
Giving his full name – John Charles Bryan Barnes – the bankruptcy notice was published in the London Gazette today after a petition was filed by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) in early August.
The bankruptcy order was issued in the High Court of Justice on September 23.
Barnes, of Wirral, Merseyside, was described as an “ex-footballer” in the notice.
HMRC said the debts of his former company exceeded £1.5 million.
The most recent liquidators’ report on Barnes’ media company showed he owed HMRC £776,878 in unpaid VAT, NI and PAYE.
He also owed unsecured creditors £461,849, a directors loan worth £226,000, and liquidators’ costs of £56,535.
Barnes has spent the last eight years paying back HM Revenue & Customs.
But it emerged last month that he was facing a new bankruptcy threat.
Appearing on the All Things Business podcast, Barnes was asked about the impact that his financial woes have had on him.
The footy icon said: “Apart from a few sleepless nights it hasn’t had a major impact on me because you look at the way the world is.
“You look at people struggling much worse than me.
“As long as I’m able to work and pay, and as much the work I’m doing is to get money to pay off (the taxman), as I’m doing now paying £10,000 a month, which means that I don’t earn £20,000 a month, which means that I’m going to have tax issues down the line.
“But I’ve whittled it down, I thought I had whittled it down to one year so this new thing is a bit of a blow.”
On how things went wrong with his finances, Barnes added: “I was making a lot of money, I was the first £10,000 a week footballer and benefited from that for a few years.
“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 £1m and £1.5m over four years.
“In 2017, I began talking to HMRC about what I could do to repay what I owed.”
The former Liverpool and England winger, capped 79 times for the Three Lions, has faced multiple bankruptcy petitions since 2010.
It includes one in 2023 over a £238,000 personal tax bill that was settled at the last moment.
Barnes hung up his boots in 1999 following a glittering career with Watford, Liverpool, Newcastle, Charlton and England.
The Three Lions icon subsequently went into management with Tranmere, Celtic and Jamaica, while he has also worked as a pundit and released a book in 2021.
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