'There are sharks out there': V11 footballer plight highlights professional athlete financial vulnerability

‘Sadly, in every industry there is good and bad'

Jenna Brown
clock • 8 min read

A BBC documentary, Football's Financial Shame: The Story of the V11, highlighted the story of a group of former Premier League footballers who say they suffered significant financial losses due to the actions of their advisers.

The players, including Danny Murphy, Michael Thomas and Rod Wallace, have formed a campaign group, V11, made up of footballers who invested in Kingsbridge Asset Management in the 1990s and 2000s, the BBC reports. Murphy told the broadcaster he lost £5m due to "financial abuse". The players were advised to invest in tax-incentivised film financing schemes and foreign property, the programme revealed, and now many players are now wrangling with HM Revenue & Customs over hefty tax liabilities. Kingsbridge founders David McKee and Kevin McMenamin "deny any wrongdoing". They told the BB...

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