Advising Sports and Media Stars: The £500 That Matters Most

Panel Reveals Why Female Footballers Outperform Male Counterparts in Financial Security—Despite Earning Significantly Less

The Manchester Conference's closing session on advising sports and media stars proved a fitting finale, blending cautionary tales with practical wisdom for an industry where earning windows close brutally early. The panel—Tim Shallcross (Amber Gaming, moderator), Ketan Pankhania (RBC Brewin Dolphin), Elle Scrivens (Deloitte), David Bentham (Centrefield), and Declan Davies (Brooks Sport)—delivered insights shaped by everything from the V11 scandal to Luke Littler's recent darts triumph.

The Most Important £500

When moderator Shallcross suggested focusing on wealth advisory for established millionaires, Declan Davies immediately pushed back: "We almost need to start at the outset because that's the important bit. If they've got £500 initially, that's almost the most important £500 to get saving and building from there."

Davies, whose firm Brooks Sport works exclusively with sporting professionals, emphasized early intervention: "Our wealthiest clients are the ones who signed their first pro contract in one room and then sat down with us in the next room going through a budget. They might be on £500 a week, £1,000 a week—not your typical high net worth individual—but we take a longer-term view."

The approach: split income into thirds. One-third for spending, one-third for short-term cash savings, one-third for life after football. "The money they invest when they're 16, 17—that money is working for them the hardest. The money they invest in their late 20s, early 30s isn't going to do much for them if they need to draw it in their mid-30s."

"We're the Most Boring Financial Planners Here"

Both Davies and Pankhania proudly claimed the "boring" mantle, emphasizing ISAs, pensions, and diversified portfolios before considering VCTs or other structures. "We look at those building blocks first and maxing out all available allowances,” Pankhania explained. "We may look at international bonds for some clients, but it's segmenting—having that core wealth set aside in a balanced and diversified portfolio, which may appear boring."

The education challenge proves persistent. Pankhania described the focus is often on higher risk and unregulated investments from financial wellbeing sessions at football clubs: "I guarantee the question they'll always ask at the end is, what do you think of Bitcoin? Or should I invest all my money in crypto?" The goal: ensure young athletes understand the basics, what a pension is, what an ISA is, what the limits are—"the stuff that none of us were probably taught in school."

The V11 Shadow and Trust Breakdown

The recent BBC documentary on V11—a 1990s film scheme that left numerous footballers facing bankruptcy and HMRC demands—loomed over discussions. Davies noted it reinforced the importance of proper advisory relationships: "Our biggest challenge is not the mismanagement of investments, it's saving clients from themselves and getting them to engage and take ownership."

He added pointedly: "As much as those players in the '90s were taken advantage of and scammed, from my experience dealing with young professionals, they don't take enough ownership of their own financial planning. Even though they are young, they do need to take advantage of the situation they're in."

The timing proved particularly resonant following John Barnes' recent candid bankruptcy disclosure—not from extravagance but from "trusting the wrong people."

The Family Factor

Pankhania emphasized education extends beyond athletes: "A lot of sporting professionals come from working-class backgrounds. Sometimes parents will have ideas of what they should do with their money—sometimes relatively sensible things like property, sometimes completely wild. You have to educate mum and dads and brothers."

Davies noted the difficulty: "Sometimes you've just gotta walk away. We've tried to work with clients for two, three years. The shame is, sometimes the client is a really good guy, he wants to do all the right things, but the family are the main influence and they cause trouble."

Cross-Border Complexity and Image Rights

David Bentham outlined the structuring considerations for international players, emphasizing coordination between jurisdictions. "It isn't as simple as just having a Spanish advisor—there's overlap between the two," using the example of Trent Alexander-Arnold's move to Real Madrid.

Elle Scrivens highlighted crucial exclusions: performance income from entertainers or sports people is specifically excluded from the Foreign Income and Gains regime, remaining taxable in the UK regardless.

Image rights and endorsement deals add layers of complexity. Bentham explained how broad sportswear deals can inadvertently capture the likes of watches, sunglasses, and fragrances, blocking lucrative deals athletes might pursue. Morality clauses increasingly dominate negotiations: where's the dividing line for brands to exit if an athlete "cheats on their partner, puts something on social media that they shouldn't have etc"?

The Influencer Intersection

Scrivens described the rapidly evolving influencer landscape, where sports stars increasingly operate. HMRC now deploys AI tools comparing social media accounts to tax returns. Designer suits or handbags provided for promotion constitute taxable income—"not a lot of influencers understand that and are doing that."

The Irish Revenue released user-friendly guidance on taxing influencers' VAT; HMRC hasn't yet, "but it's only a matter of time."

The Harsh Arithmetic of Retirement

Davies delivered the session's sobering reality check: "Most footballers will actually need to work after they finish playing. That includes Premier League superstars, because ultimately the more you earn, the more you spend."

Cash flow forecasting proves critical. "When we sit down with a player at 31, 32 in the last couple years of his last contract, cash flow forecasting is the whole meeting. It shows him how long his money's going to last, whether he can continue to send his kids to private school, whether he's got to go get a “normal job” to cover the shortfall."

An Unexpected Finding

Perhaps the session's most striking observation came regarding gender differences. Davies noted: "Some of our female clients are the most financially secure. Even though their earnings are significantly less than male internationals—literally day and night—they spend significantly less. They listen to financial advice better than the men do."

As the conference concluded, the message resonated clearly: in an industry where earning windows close at 35 and trust proves difficult to rebuild once broken, boring advice executed early delivers better outcomes than sophisticated strategies implemented too late.