John Barnes breaks silence on bankruptcy as England legend loses everything to pay £1.5m bill
John Barnes has spoken out on the sequence of events that led to him filing for bankruptcy in September 2025. The former Liverpool and England winger had a petition filed against him by HM Revenue & Customs after running up more than £1.5million in debts.
Barnes, 62, was previously declared bankrupt in 2009, even though he described the ordeal as a "tax oversight." But he has now gone into detail regarding this latest financial ordeal, which he says is a direct consequence of his funds being mismanaged during his playing career.
"So I got caught with a lot of coffee [investments] in Brazil," he said on the latest episode of
Gary Neville then asked if the Kop icon had any advisors at the time, to which Barnes responded: "No. My agent was just an agent who did football. These are other people coming in to say, 'Well, what about this? What about this scheme?'
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"And then, of course, villas in Florida [referring to the scheme that made many footballers lose millions with Kingsbridge investments], similar to that. But I didn't look to go down the route that they then did [in attempting to get their money back].
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"But I lost a lot of money, and by the time I stopped playing football and this big tax bill came in, I was playing catch-up for many, many years until I, from 2017 up until last year, had finally paid off about £2m.
"But then the tax man wanted last year's money, after cashing in everything I had to pay them! And what I really should have done is gone bankrupt from 2017 Honestly I would have had £2m I could have done whatever I wanted with. But what I didn't want to do is to be seen not paying it.
"So of course people think, 'He's not paying tax, he's not paying tax.' But from 2017, I've been paying everything I've had, cashing in everything, whatever house I had. So all I've got is my house. Everything I physically can."
The Jamaica-born icon went on to say he felt as though he was just about to get his head above water when tax collectors were "overly aggressive" in chasing his bill. As a result, he had to go bankrupt again.
"Because I see people go bankrupt and still have houses and cars, and stuff like that. And I don't have that," he continued. "I've still got my house and my car. But I haven't got any investments anywhere, because I've cashed it all in. Because I really want people to know...because I see how hard it is for people all over.
"You know, people can't pay their heating bill and stuff. And here am I having money and now I'm not paying the tax. So the only reason I did it was because of that. But that's life."
Arsenal icon Ian Wright enquired further about the advice (or lack thereof) that Barnes might have received over his investments. And Barnes detailed how things have changed for footballers since he was at his peak.
"Don't forget, when we were playing, they were like 'mates who knew somebody' type of thing," he added. "It wasn't really that structured...and the club themselves put you in touch with people who could look after you.
"Whereas back then, I remember even when I first got an agent, they were like, 'An agent? You don't need an agent.' The way clubs were...I won't say they used to abuse players, but I remember once they said, 'Look, the contract's there for you to go sign. Just go sign it.'"
Fellow pundit Jill Scott shared her two cents that there are still likely players now receiving bad advise from people around them. Roy Keane joined in by recommending "a good accountant" above all else.
Barnes continues to work as a pundit and is a popular figure on the guest speaker circuit. The two-time FA Cup and league title-winner has had brief stints as manager of Celtic, Jamaica and most recently Tranmere Rovers but hasn't held a coaching position since 2009.