Really not a good image

AROUND 20 years ago, I was one of a number of players whose image rights were looked into by HMRC. Several clubs had broken their transfer records to sign me, I was the British record signing at the time, and playing for one of the world’s biggest clubs, Liverpool, so it’s safe to say I had an image well worth exploiting. About a decade later, when Portsmouth’s dirty linen was being aired in public, we saw the lengths clubs were going to just to save a few bob, with image rights under the spotlight. That was the first time I’d heard of players who wouldn’t even be recognised in their own street, let alone worldwide, trying to use image rights to avoid paying fair tax. I was reminded of that again on Sunday when it emerged that 246 players were being investigated by HMRC, and the news made me slump in despair. I wonder who is advising any player who isn’t a superstar that he can get a good chunk of wages via his image? Come on, agents and players, you’re getting a great screw these days, even below the Premier League and Championship. This loophole was closed years ago and the taxman will rightly be onto you if you’re not careful.

THE videos UEFA put up of players talking about their experiences of racism are completely disingenuous.

They give the appearance that European football’s governing body is doing something to combat the scourge of racism, when the reality is there is no actual change in ethnic diversity at any of these organisations or in the way the body acts on in-ground racism by saying: “Enough really is enough.”