Craig Short is one of the V11

It's not great, but I hope they're not looking for the taxpayer to make things right.

These players didn't blow all their cash while playing; rather, they took the wise advice and worked with an investment firm working with the LMA to invest for the future.

The charlatans running it lost the lot.

Watching this makes me wonder about Gary Speed.

Listening to these guys, you can't help wondering…

The other thing is, if they make a loss on your money, they won't tell you. At least when you lose your own money, you will know about it. My understanding is that clubs do advise young players on money management, but such is life — some will get caught out somehow.

I was talking to a ex-girlfriend of Keith Gillespie in the local sauna. She told me she had just decided to go it alone buying a house, rather than co ownership, for herself and her 4-year-old son. Having signed for the house on a Friday, Keith announced on the Saturday night date that he had blown £60,000 on the horses that day. She blurted out "What the fuck!" Needless to say, she quickly moved on.

Better advise I reckon was from Bob who was made redundant having been asked, from shovelling coal off a boat onto a quay for 25 years. He went on back-to-back holidays with his wife to Spain for 3 years, spending the lot. It continued for another two years as his wife was also made redundant. He then was going to cash in his matured insurance policy.

One of the happiest men I ever came across, enjoyed every cent of his money and loved the people he gave it to. Craig Short would have been better to do something like that. Enjoy your money – you will be better off.

One player being pursued for £20M in unpaid tax, and the investments are worthless.

They're all in a financial abyss.

They'll all be declared bankrupt and lost it all if it plays out. Desperate.

I'll have to watch it again to see what I missed about why the tax bills come back to them.

Tax bills are coming out of film schemes because UK courts have ruled that these schemes were not legitimate commercial investments but rather aggressive tax avoidance vehicles. As a result, HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) is demanding that investors repay the tax relief they claimed, along with significant interest and fees.

How the film schemes worked

In the early 2000s, the UK government introduced tax incentives to encourage investment in the British film industry. Promoters developed complex partnership schemes, such as Ingenious and Eclipse, that exploited these rules to offer wealthy individuals substantial tax relief.

The schemes were structured to create artificial trading losses that investors, as partners, could then deduct from their personal income. The key mechanism was often a "sale-and-leaseback" arrangement where a film partnership would acquire the rights to a film, often with significant bank loans, and then lease them back to a distributor.

Why the schemes failed

HMRC challenged the schemes in court, arguing they were designed primarily for tax avoidance rather than genuine commercial purposes. The courts ultimately agreed, delivering a series of landmark victories for HMRC. The specific reasons for the rulings included:

No genuine trading: The courts found that many film partnerships were not actually carrying on a trade with a view to making a profit, which is a key requirement for the tax relief claimed.

Circular funding: In schemes like Eclipse, investors used loans to fund their "investment," and the money flowed in a circular pattern designed to create a tax-deductible interest payment. The courts determined this was not a legitimate expense.

Excessive tax relief: Many schemes enabled investors to claim more in tax relief than the amount of money they actually risked.

The consequences for investors

The legal rulings paved the way for HMRC to take action against thousands of investors. The consequences include:

Repayment of tax: Investors are required to repay the tax they originally saved.

Accelerated Payment Notices (APNs): In some cases, HMRC used APNs to force investors to pay the disputed tax upfront while the cases were still being litigated.

Interest and penalties: A significant portion of the total bills consists of interest charges, which have accumulated over years of litigation, and penalties for using an illegal tax avoidance scheme.

Dry tax: Many investors now face a "dry tax" charge, where they owe tax on money they never actually received as income. This is because the tax relief was denied, but the interest on the loans used to fund the schemes remains a liability.

They don't have the assets, and need to pay the tax that they avoided previously.

Call me a tree-hugging old liberal, but I'd love to see a few fraudsters have their hands chopped off in public to disuade future participants.

The tendency is always going to be to go for the best return on investment (on the face of it, you'd be a fool not to) which means the poorly advised are going to be vulnerable to making poor choices when investing.

Ironically, research later suggested a preponderance of Brits to consider fraud as acceptable crime... all of this at a cost to the taxpayer.

Another example is Thames Water: zombie company after years of paying billions to investors. The taxpayer will bail them out.

Myriad of other cases. Horizon at Post Office. Infected Blood. HS2 overruns. Taxpayer.

And it's a diminishing pool of taxpayers as almost 3,000 per day disappear onto welfare. I actually feel sorry for the Government. Not as much as I feel sorry for the over-burdened, under-served taxpayer.

Remind me who the criminals are?

Dale #10, some countries go farther than hand chopping, it's a death penalty in Viet Nam.

Si #11, fortunately in UK there are some reputable fund management products that are a lot less risky than the murky offshore products, and they actually make money.

Bernie Madoff's whole business was based on referrals. The LMA and various clubs were in bed with these guys. Yes, the government changed the goals but regardless, the investments failed. The government changed just moved players from being people who lost money to people who owed money.

We often complain about the wages players earn. And I personally have little sympathy for the Keith Gillespie types Jerome mentions who frit away their cash. But the likes of Rodney Wallace, Craig Short, Sean Davis even the RS Danny Murphy, who seems like no idiot, trusted “professionals” recommended by personal contacts and not only lost everything but ended up in debt.

Several of them mentioned suicidal ideation as a consequence. It's fucked up. It's not right.

The V11 stuff shows the bad schemes don't necessarily come with the appropriate warning notices.

Sharks will always be circling, looking to feast on the unwary.

Si is right. If like the average footballer you don't even get GCSEs, how are you supposed to know the difference between con men and reputable firms? Especially as in this case if the con men are ingratiated with the LMA and clubs?

Let's not forget the Icelandic government got snowed before the mortgage crisis and almost bankrupted the whole country. Not to mention Greece. These government entities hired accountants and business people who you'd think would know better.

What chance does the average working class kid who ditched school at 15 to be a footballer have?

I work in education and also coach U18s at youth level. All of the 6 players I know who have turned pro (at different levels), all have at least 5 GCSEs at C or 4 and above.

I don't know of any study into educational achievements for footballers? I'd be interested to know. For every example of no GCSEs (Wayne Rooney), you'll find high attainment (Frank Lampard) so the picture is quite broad.

I do think the points you (and others) make are valid though. Having GCSEs doesn't make you financially literate anyway (I'm also in the camp that believes education has been dumbed down over the past 50 years) and young men, who suddenly become millionaires are vulnerable to shysters. Especially without the right support and advisors around them.

Or maybe they were after the high-risk, high-reward products and didn't read the small print.

Some form of financial awareness and budgeting should be taught in schools, I agree. My daughter's school did to a lesser extent, bank account opening, NI numbers, GP and dentist registrations… while I suggested to the teachers they should advise on signing on, which they ignored.

Steve Heighway was one, studying Law if I remember right?

The conduct of the financial regulatory body is jaw-dropping to say the least.

When handwriting experts said some of the signatures were forged, and the properties these players invested in were massively overpriced, and more alarming was that Kingsbridge actually owned a lot of these overpriced properties.

Also seeing that they were paying Howard Wilkinson, the then Leeds manager, for promoting their company… why wasn't he interviewed, I guess he refused any interviews.

Now let's be fair — this isn't comparable to how the Post Office people were treated, but it just shows how corruption can go unpunished.

Unfortunately, greed and corruption will always be here. Good luck to anyone who does not fall prey to these gobshites.

Always remember, There is no such thing as a free lunch. If it sounds too good to be true, it is.

Ironically, I'm pretty sure he (Craig) worked in a bank before turning pro, so definitely not the bluntest tool in the box!

Good luck to them all.

Exactly. But they were greedy. They saw a chance for easy money and got ripped off. They blame bad advice, but I'll bet many people told them to be careful but they took no notice.

The two conmen didn't even have to work that hard. These guys just couldn't wait to hand over their cash. So they spurned what the rest of us ordinary mortals do. Just put it into a saving account.

No doubt the banks would have given them a much higher interest rate than the rest of us get. Make sure enough goes into a decent private pension. It might be boring but it's safe. It may be more exciting but, if an investment sounds too good to be true, it almost certainly is.

I seem to recall that Lucas Neil lost a reputed $26M investing in real estate in USA during the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac mortgage institutes(?) crashes under George W Bush.

Craig, you may not have been the sexiest player to ever grace Goodison, but you were strong and dependable and tried your bollocks off for us. I wish you and the others the best of luck trying to get some form of justice for the wrongs you have suffered.

These are young lads earning more money than they could imagine, they looked to older, "wiser" people for guidance.

Some of the players even had a team manager involved with this investment company, so you can hardly blame them for wanting to trust these guys.

There but for the grace of God and all that...

There is no way HMRC will want a test case, whereby a taxpayer gets out of paying tax because their tax avoidance scheme failed.

It can't be upside of it working, and full protection if it doesn't.

It seems that they're in massive trouble. And for that I think it's sad, that young impressionable men have been done over.

His suicide troubled me greatly at the time, but Lyndon Lloyd and others stamped down on any speculation or concern for what might have caused it.

Now you have this:

Gary Speed was at Leeds Utd from 1988 to 1996.
Howard Wilkinson was Leeds Utd manager from 1988 to 1996

From the documentary, it would appear that Wilkinson was clearly in tight with the two shysters... it just seems too much to be merely a coincidence.

But then again, they would surely have said something about Gary Speed? I'm sure he was never mentioned.

And there's a reason for it.

Gordon Taylor, head of the PFA, and Howard Wilkinson, Head of the LMA, were alleged to have close links with Kingsbridge Asset Management.

Gordon Taylor facing questions over whether ex-PFA man helped sell dodgy deals at centre of £100m fraud probe — Daily Mail, 24 November 2018

There is an ex Leeds cohort in Dean, Wilkinson, Rod Wallace. Possible Gary was impacted.

You can't portray it as being like a trip to the bookies.

Yes that is correct.The taxman knocks on the player's door. As far as HMRC is concerned the Client is untimely responsible, and this is enshrined in law.The player then must knock on the door of the advisor who gave them the bad advice to get the money to pay the taxman. The player's likelihood of success in that second fight depends heavily on whether they took reasonable steps and were misled by their advisor.This could take years and be very costly.

A friend of mine Mark who scrapped through one o level in Maths and got a job as a teaboy in the City, worked his way up and started the first Hedge fund in Europe advised , stay humble, do not let money become your drug , always know where you are coming from yourself and always made sure you pay the correct amount of taxes.