Forgot he played for us.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/spo...n/news-story/d1337139c853b8385fd982697f789a11
How Lucas Neill’s risky run ended in ruin
How Lucas Neill’s risky run ended in ruin
Former Socceroos defender and captain Lucas Neill. Picture: Gregg Porteous
Lucas Neill did business alongside Paul Burrell, former butler to Princess Diana.
One of Australia’s highest paid sportsmen, former Socceroos captain Lucas Neill, made a series of disastrous investments in films, property and sporting ventures over the past two decades before being declared bankrupt earlier this year.
Neill, who was earning $150,000 a week at the height of his football fame while playing for English Premier League clubs West Ham and Everton — and earned an estimated $40 million over the course of his stellar 20-year sporting career that included stints in Europe, Japan and the Middle East — has been ordered to return to Britain so that trustees can obtain more information to determine the full scale of debts.
Neill, 38, who played his last game for the Socceroos in 2013 but never formally announced his international retirement, boasted a diverse investment portfolio and did business alongside several British figures, including his one-time football manager, current Sunderland boss Sam Allardyce, and the former butler to Princess Diana, Paul Burrell.
One of Neill’s investments was The Film Development Partnership, which lost £117,977 last financial year. Mr Burrell and Allardyce also invested in that venture, as did two earls, a lord and two knights.
He also had indirect dealings with slain Sydney standover man Michael McGurk in 2009, when Neill was looking to fund a bid for a western Sydney A-League team — to be called the Sydney Wanderers — for which Neill was planning to be the marquee player. His then agent Paddy Dominguez had several meetings with McGurk, who was sounded out as a possible “financial middleman” for the bid, shortly before McGurk was killed.
Neill’s string of investments spanned the globe and included property in the US, a coaching clinic in Australia, and film and restaurant dealings in Britain. Like many high-earning sportsmen, Neill had invested in industries that attracted lucrative tax benefits as well as those that piqued his interest, such as horse racing. UK Companies House records show the British businesses where Neill holds directorships have £15m ($28.7m) in cash but the overall financial position is currently £7.1m in the red.
Neill’s fall from grace has caught those who know him unawares. Some of his former Socceroos teammates yesterday said they didn’t know or hadn’t heard how he got himself into this position.
Another Neill investment in the entertainment industry is in the Take 5 Film Liabilities Partnership which provides funding for films, but which has struggled in the past few years. Last year it earned nothing and owes £6.9m to creditors.
Those creditors, apart from Neill, include Widnes rugby league coach Denis Betts, former Aston Villa and Blackburn Rovers goalkeeper Peter Enckelman, Everton footballer Gareth Farrelly, Bolton Wanderers player Nicky Southall, Britain’s most famous jockey Tony McCoy and another jockey, Richard Johnson.
Neill has familiarity with dissolution of businesses. One company of which he was a director for a month, Platinum4Sports, a business owned by his agent Darren Jackson, was wound up in 2009 with liabilities of more than £13,000. Another real estate venture for which Neill was a director, Opulence Pty Ltd, was dissolved in 2005 with liabilities of more than £25,000.
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