Former Liverpool, Leicester City and Aston Villa striker Emile Heskey is reportedly facing bankruptcy.
The 45-year-old had a net worth that was estimated to be £12million back in 2009. According to The Sun, he has faced financial woes since joining a celebrity investment scheme which has now been placed at the centre of a £1.6billion tax dispute.
As well as Heskey’s recent financial woes, Mail Sport revealed this month that Burnley defender Charlie Taylor has been declared bankrupt due to unpaid bills.
The 30-year-old left-back, who earns around £30,000-a-week, is understood to have been issued with a bankruptcy order last year and is in the process of having it annulled.
So, with both Heskey and Taylor’s finances under scrutiny, who are the sports stars to have lost their fortunes?
Former Liverpool, Leicester and England striker Emile Heskey is reportedly facing bankruptcy
Charlie Taylor has been declared bankrupt due to unpaid bills, Mail Sport understands
Mike Tyson
Mike Tyson declared bankruptcy in 2005 at a time where he said he was $23million in debt
Boxing icon Mike Tyson revealed in 2014 that he had been forgiven by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for $2million of the taxes he owed dating back years beforehand.
Tyson declared bankruptcy years before in 2005 when he said he was $23m in debt – a figure which he worked to reduce over the subsequent years.
The fighter spoke about his appreciation for the government agency during a talk that coincided with the launch of a documentary called Champs, which profiled him and his former rival Evander Holyfield and fellow boxer Bernard Hopkins.
‘I didn’t spare any quarters any nickels or dimes either. I’m not regretful for that whatsoever,’ the then-47-year-old said, according to the Tribeca Film Festival.
‘I had a 9th grade education. But my kids go to Ivy League schools. I’m dumb as s*** but I did something right.’
Wes Brown
Former Manchester United and Sunderland defender Wes Brown was unable to keep up with his higher-earning teammates
A more recent sporting bankruptcy is that of former Manchester United and Sunderland footballer Wes Brown.
The defender, who only retired in 2018, was declared bankrupt in April 2023 after unsuccessful property investments and a desire to keep pace with higher-earning teammates caught up with him.
Despite earning £50,000 per week for much of his career, Brown was six-figures in debt to HMRC five years after calling time on his career.
A source told Mail Sport at the time: ‘It may seem like Wes was earning big money – to most people he was – but the trouble was he was also trying to keep up with the lifestyle of team-mates earning five or six times more than he was.’
Brown and Real Housewives of Cheshire star wife Leanne Wassell also went through a costly divorce.
Boris Becker
Boris Becker was sentenced to 2.5 years in jail for fraudulently hiding £2.5m worth of assets and loans to avoid paying his debts
In a different vein, Boris Becker was declared bankrupt in June 2017, but then sentenced to 2.5 years in jail for fraudulently hiding £2.5m worth of assets and loans to avoid paying his debts.
The three-time Wimbledon champion owed creditors almost £50m over an unpaid loan of more than £3m on his estate in Mallorca, Spain.
He also failed to declare his share in a £1m property in his home town of Leimen, Germany, concealed a bank loan of almost £700,000 – worth £1.1m with interest – and hid 75,000 shares in a tech firm – valued at £66,000.
Becker also got a two-year suspended sentence for tax evasion and attempted tax evasion worth £1.4m in Germany in 2002.
In sentencing the tennis ace, Judge Deborah Taylor said: ‘You have not shown remorse, acceptance of your guilt and have sought to distance yourself from your offending and your bankruptcy.
‘While I accept your humiliation as part of the proceedings, there has been no humility.’
Ronaldinho
Ronaldinho was almost jailed in 2019 having failed to pay a £2m environmental fine and other debts
In 2018, Brazil legend Ronaldinho was found to have just £5 to his name after authorities investigated his accounts over debts of £1.75m, despite many putting his net worth at over £67m, years after his lucrative playing spells at Barcelona and AC Milan during his 17-year career.
The icon earned £5.1m a year when he joined the Rossoneri in 2008, not including bonuses tipping the wage past the six-million mark
But speculation grew that despite the big-money moves and endorsement deals with Nike, Pepsi, Coca-Cola and EA Sports that totalled more than £15.3m ($19m), Ronaldinho was tapped out.
The tricky forward was almost jailed in 2019 having failed to pay a £2m environmental fine and other debts that saw 57 of his real estate properties confiscated to cover the debts.
It was a year later that the law caught with Ronaldinho, after a pair of doctored passports used by the player and his brother to sneak into Paraguay as the guests of a local casino owner sent the storied Brazil international for a one-month stint in a Paraguayan prison – during which Ronaldinho competed in, and unsurprisingly won, the jail’s futsal tournament.
Paul Merson
Paul Merson lost roughly £7m over the course of a 35-year gambling addiction which began during his early career at Arsenal
Former Arsenal star Paul Merson has spoken openly about his struggles with gambling, which have left him close-to if not broke on a number of occasions.
The midfielder revealed that he lost around £7m over a 35-year addiction, before relapsing over the first Covid-19 lockdown – losing £160,000 which had been set aside to help buy a house for his family.
He told The Sun that anxiety over a lack of punditry work made him feel a need to turn back to the bookies, with his final bet to the tune of £8,000 placed on a table tennis player.
The father of eight’s first two marriages broke down as a result of his addiction, and he believes his current wife Kate – who he gave control of his finances – would leave him if he were to relapse again.
Mark Allen
Northern Irish snooker player Mark Allen has won more then £3.5m through his sport but found bankruptcy to be the ‘only choice’ in 2021
Snooker player Mark Allen revealed in 2022 that he declared himself bankrupt the previous year, admitting to BBC Northern Ireland that he had ‘overspent on every aspect of my life’.
The Northern Irishman has won more then £3.5m through his sport but found bankruptcy to be the ‘only choice’ in 2021.
When he revealed this he added that he had moved into rented accommodation after a costly divorce from Kyla McGuigan.
David James
David James filed for bankruptcy in 2014 despite earning £20m from a career which ended the same year
Former England No 1 David James may have earned over £20m from stints between the sticks at Liverpool, Aston Villa, and Manchester City but in 2014, James was forced to file for bankruptcy and begin the difficult task of auctioning off his possessions.
He also made £50,000 a week at cash-rich Portsmouth from 2006 to 2010, when the shot-stopper is said to have begun accruing debts in the wake of his 2005 divorce from his wife Tanya.
Among the possessions that James was forced to part with were DJ equipment, vinyl records, signed match balls, a customised Vauxhall Astra van, a Power Plate exercise machine and his collection of 1970s Raleigh Chopper bikes.
Since retiring in 2014, James has explored his creative side, painting in his free time and illustrating a children’s book.
Diego Maradona
In 2009, the Italian Tax Authority accused Diego Maradona of not paying £42m-worth of tax during his time playing for Serie A club Napoli
As much existing as an emblem of prodigious talent as a flypaper for decadences, Diego Maradona was likely prepared for a visit from the taxman after a period of the highest excesses during his time playing for Napoli.
What might have been a shock, however, was the sum which authorities were after.
The Italian Tax Authority came knocking in 2009 for repayments of £32m covering his time at the Serie A side.
The Argentine legend, who was deified in his adopted city after delivering a raft of silverware to the Neapolitan trophy cabinet during his seven-year spell, earned a salary of around £2.4m ($3m) a year, and far more in endorsements as a globally recognised icon.
His fortunes were more than restored by the time of his death in 2020, leaving his family to scrap over a £150m estate, but the playmaker is said to have ‘died poor’ when looking beyond his assets, with just £75,000 in his bank account after his passing.
Lenny Dykstra
Baseball great-turned-bad boy Lenny Dykstra has reportedly accumulated over a year’s worth of unpaid rent after pandemic relief funds stopped paying for his LA pad
Baseball great-turned-bad boy Lenny Dykstra is reportedly facing eviction over $50,000-worth of rent which had been left unpaid for over a year by November 2023.
Inside sources told DailyMail.com the center fielder moved into his $4,700-a-month one-bed, one-bath unit in November 2020 using pandemic relief funds, and he allegedly failed to pick up where they left off after 18 months.
The monthly outlay for his Los Angeles luxury pad was added to by a $1,000-a-month security deposit.
Dykstra’s landlord, 888 Hilgard Bliss Apartments LLC, filed an ‘unlawful detainer’ lawsuit to have him evicted and a hearing was scheduled for November 27 in Santa Monica.
No outcome has been announced at time of writing.
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