General Football 23/24

[Catrin]

There’s a programme about this on iplayer and on BBC2 tonight.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cg7jn722rkeo

It says up to 200 players affected, including Danny Murphy and Michael Thomas. Hopefully no further former reds got swindled.

I watched this and it was really sad. The players in the film included Danny Murphy and Michael Thomas. Stan Collymore and Mark Wright were mentioned as clients as well. There was a name redacted as an England and Arsenal player who had come to football late so that must be Ian Wright.

Basically an investment firm ended up linked to the LMA and sold advice to a load of players. Bad advice.
An example was a scheme where a player would invest £100k, the firm would borrow £900k then invest £1m in films and get a tax credit of £400k. Investing that £400k in property was supposed to yield the returns to pay the loans and profit for the player. The property deals were arguably dodgy so they failed and the player investing the £100k ends up owing £400k to HMRC. They didn't say who but the biggest tax bill was £20M.

As it stands, HMRC are chasing the players for the film tax credits but they didn't benefit from them in the first place. City of London Police decided the players are victims of crime but that there wasn't enough evidence to convict the directors of the investment firm. Logically if the players are victims of crime then so is HMRC by the same perpetrators, but HMRC don't see it that way.

[Kenneth]

At 1:10, you won't see a worse miss than this from Luis Diaz all season, maybe ever.

https://youtu.be/KsmFuuohi1M?si=q3hMoqZcIVYX8LfG

[ChesterDave]

Missed this from 6 weeks ago. What a load of ****e! If a player was fouled when otherwise clean through on goal why should they lose the right to a rebound they would have had in normal play?

The sweaty pubes in charge of football really do like fiddling with the wrong stuff.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/football-rule-change-penalty-rebounds-35568895

[Exiled_red]

Missed this from 6 weeks ago. What a load of ****e! If a player was fouled when otherwise clean through on goal why should they lose the right to a rebound they would have had in normal play?

The sweaty pubes in charge of football really do like fiddling with the wrong stuff.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/footb...ounds-35568895

I'd not seen that but what a load of ****e.

[Kenneth]

On balance, penalties are too much of a reward for the majority of fouls that they are given for, so nerfing them ever so slightly is a good thing imo. Of course, there will be times when teams end up on the wrong side of equation, but then do better at penalties.

[Tatterdemalion]

I watched this and it was really sad. The players in the film included Danny Murphy and Michael Thomas. Stan Collymore and Mark Wright were mentioned as clients as well. There was a name redacted as an England and Arsenal player who had come to football late so that must be Ian Wright.

Basically an investment firm ended up linked to the LMA and sold advice to a load of players. Bad advice.
An example was a scheme where a player would invest £100k, the firm would borrow £900k then invest £1m in films and get a tax credit of £400k. Investing that £400k in property was supposed to yield the returns to pay the loans and profit for the player. The property deals were arguably dodgy so they failed and the player investing the £100k ends up owing £400k to HMRC. They didn't say who but the biggest tax bill was £20M.

As it stands, HMRC are chasing the players for the film tax credits but they didn't benefit from them in the first place. City of London Police decided the players are victims of crime but that there wasn't enough evidence to convict the directors of the investment firm. Logically if the players are victims of crime then so is HMRC by the same perpetrators, but HMRC don't see it that way.

I don't get why so many sports people fall for this kind of thing. It was quite common at the time in fairness, but there are loads of bog standard wealth management firms out there who trade on the trust of their name who would never have provided them with investment advice like this (some would have, admittedly) - in fact the advice they'd have given them would have been around insurance, pensions and the like. As for actual investment, they'd have been desperate to have them in discretionary portfolios (discretionary means the firm makes all the investment decisions with the money in the portfolio - typically it's invested in boring multi asset portfolios, similar to lifestyle funds). They even have teams of relationship managers aimed at winning these kind of clients. It's a shame and suggests that financial education should be something clubs offer players (I mean introductions to investment firms, really).

[BG1973]

That investment is so sketchy... to lose your investment is one thing...

I presume that was buried way down in the smallprint. Scumbags inc Hmrc the thieving ****s.

[ChesterDave]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c1wg9x2erw4o

'Every idea is a good idea' - how would 64-team World Cup look?

Why not just have a 192 team world cup and instead of holding it every 4 years make it last 4 years.

[Exiled_red]

I hate when people say 'Every idea is a good idea' **** off no it isn't. Lots of people have lots of stupid ideas all the time and this is one of them

[ChesterDave]

I hate when people say 'Every idea is a good idea' **** off no it isn't. Lots of people have lots of stupid ideas all the time and this is one of them

I like the phrase every idea is a good idea when the idea is that FIFA executives should have to use their bare arse as a bike rack outside FIFA HQ 1 day every month.

[ChesterDave]

no age to go

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq5jye4v64no

[Sus]

I like the phrase every idea is a good idea when the idea is that FIFA executives should have to use their bare arse as a bike rack outside FIFA HQ 1 day every month.

Infantino should do at least a week a month. Its probably second nature to him by now

[Scratch]

no age to go

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq5jye4v64no

Why is there a concrete wall anywhere near a football pitch tho?

[red g]

6 games a day? Thats mental.


I imagine their is going to be some very disgruntled children and partners!!

[vlahka]

Time for those children and partners to pick up the slack and get to enjoying football. Or else to the volcano with them!