Inside ex-Liverpool icon's bankruptcy after £1.5m debts - 'Sleepless nights'

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Former England international and Liverpool legend John Barnes has been declared bankrupt after his media company built up £1.5million of debtJohn Barnes has been declared bankrupt after his media company accumulated a debt of £1.5million over several years. According to the report, the ex-footballer owes HMRC £776,878 in unpaid VAT, National Insurance, and PAYE, £461,849 to unsecured creditors and a £226,000 director's loan.READ MORE: Liverpool handed Marc Guehi transfer update as new timeline for deal clearREAD MORE: Steven Gerrard says Liverpool made big transfer mistake with player he rowed withIn 2023, Barnes was banned from being a company director for three-and-a-half years after an Insolvency Service investigation found his firm failed to pay more than £190,000 in corporation tax and VAT between 2018 and 2020, despite a turnover of £441,798, reports Chronicle Live.Since 2010, Barnes has faced numerous bankruptcy petitions, including one in 2023 over a £238,000 personal tax bill that was settled at the eleventh hour.The 61-year-old has opened up about his severe financial difficulties, revealing that misplaced trust in the wrong individuals led him into a predicament that has caused him sleepless nights.In an interview with the All Things Business podcast last month, Barnes said: "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 £1million and £1.5million over four years."In 2017, I began talking to HMRC about what I could do to repay what I owed.

You look at people struggling much worse than me."As long as I'm able to work and pay, and as much as 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."The ex-England star is no stranger to financial troubles, having encountered several bankruptcy proceedings over the years beginning in 2010.Barnes confessed that coping with public scrutiny has proved challenging for him and he is determined not to be labelled as someone who dodges his tax obligations.He said: "I know how hard it is for people out there.

I don't 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've already sold everything. I don't have any assets."But 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'm going to court, not to be made bankrupt, but to ask for permission to keep paying."Football is a working-class sport, and I don't want hard-working people thinking I've got all this money and I won't pay tax.