{"id":48108,"date":"2025-04-25T01:35:13","date_gmt":"2025-04-25T01:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/48108\/"},"modified":"2025-04-25T01:35:13","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T01:35:13","slug":"ex-england-star-in-bankruptcy-battle-over-unpaid-bill-seven-years-after-bbc-sacking-football-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/48108\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-England star ‘in bankruptcy battle over unpaid bill’ seven years after BBC sacking | Football | Sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former England<\/a> international Trevor Sinclair is the subject of a bankruptcy order from HMRC<\/a> over a \u00a336k tax bill. The 52-year-old was once a top Premier League<\/a> player with the likes of Queens Park Rangers<\/a>, West Ham<\/a> and Manchester City<\/a>, before becoming a regular fixture on TV screens in retirement.<\/p>\n

But his punditry career took a blow when he was axed by the BBC<\/a> in 2018, and again when he left talkSPORT following a controversial social media post about Queen Elizabeth’s death. Now, he is in the midst of a legal back-and-forth, with District Judge Caroline Wilkinson telling him: “No more head in the sand.”<\/p>\n

Central London County Court heard that Sinclair ended up owing a sizeable sum to the taxman after his accountant died. The amount owed stems from the 2021\/22 tax year and includes two large sums, plus outstanding National Insurance and penalty payments.<\/p>\n

Shabab Rizvi, for HMRC<\/a>, told Judge Wilkinson: “HMRC<\/a>‘s position today is that we are seeking a bankruptcy order. Since the breathing space order ended, we have had no contact from the debtor. The debtor is a former Premier League footballer and should have the means to satisfy the debt, but there’s been no contact with HMRC<\/a> at all.”<\/p>\n

Sinclair’s legal representative successfully sought a two-month adjournment after disclosing that the 52-year-old ‘is currently in receipt of a job offer in Saudi Arabia’.<\/p>\n

Sinclair has been an assistant coach for the Indian national team since last January. He took up a punditry role with the BBC<\/a> in 2015, having retired from top-level professional football seven years prior, although he was dismissed by the broadcaster after injuring a woman while driving drunk.<\/p>\n

He told the Ben Heath Podcast<\/a> last year: “I’ve got no time for anyone that gets behind the wheel after drinking and I did that, so I lost my job with the BBC<\/a>. I was driving carefully, seeing the girl kind of get out and as soon as I clipped her, I thought – everything just went dark.<\/p>\n

“And then I waited for the police and said, ‘I’ve been drinking, bang to rights’. The BBC<\/a> obviously didn’t want to know anymore after that. Obviously, I regret that.”<\/p>\n

Sinclair remained an expert voice on talkSPORT in the years that followed, but he was suspended by the radio station for a social media post on the Queen’s death in 2022. He wrote: “Racism was outlawed in England in the 60’s & it’s been allowed to thrive so why should black and brown mourn!!”<\/p>\n

Sinclair later deleted the post and apologised, but he only made one more appearance on talkSPORT before moving into coaching.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former England international Trevor Sinclair is the subject of a bankruptcy order from HMRC over a \u00a336k tax…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48109,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5008],"tags":[192,748,393,12632,4884,9416,26212,26211,26210,16,15,1927],"class_list":{"0":"post-48108","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-england","8":"tag-bbc","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-england-football-team","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-man-city","14":"tag-qpr","15":"tag-sinclair","16":"tag-trevor-sinclair","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-west-ham"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114396039069226447","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}