being totally out of touch with UK Tax regulations since the eighties,what percentage of top sports earners are actually paid thru the UK system ? or,how many players wages are paid into offshore accounts as was (is now ?) with the footballers of he 70s & 80s ? thus avoiding any UK tax regulations.
Does anyone know how widespread this practice is in SL ?

A key point is whether you are UK-Domiciled or not.

Pretty well all sportsmen/women from overseas will not be UK-domiciled. This means they are taxable only on their income arising in the UK and not on in come arising overseas. Consequently, if (say) a player establishes a personal service company in a tax haven (e.g. Guernsey, but can be far more exotic) and the player assigns his image rights to that company, and that company charges his club (or sponsor) for the image rights, that income should escape UK tax (with a load of caveats, of course). Structured properly, it can also escape tax back in his country of domicile, at least whilst not remitted* back, since he is not resident there for tax at the time. (Bit simplistic, and any international tax experts will be able to improve on it, but that's sort of the gist).

Then you get things like the Singapore Sling (or parachute, as I call it) - something like player is paid a big bonus by his club while he is physically on his way back from the UK permanently to Oz (or wherever). He has ceased to be UK-resident and so the payment escapes UK tax, but is not yet OZ-resident so it escapes Oz tax provided (I believe) it is not remitted* back to Oz where the player is domiciled. The "singapore" bit is because, the joke goes, the player is either in or flying through Singapore when the payment is made, being the usual mid-point flight change.

And a host of other similar devices, of varying effectiveness.

As for just paying salary into offshore accounts - you can't do that. However, if you are smart with how long in each tax year you are physically in the UK, and smart with how you set up vehicles for either employing you or for receiving the benefit of your services, there are ways of sheltering income offshore in low-tax jurisdictions. Again, need an international tax specialist to improve on that simplistic statement.

I suspect pretty well every overseas player will have a package that involves some of his income being paid tax-free offshore in some form - to the extent it is legal, a club would be mad not to take advantage of it.


* not too clued up on the Oz (etc) side of it, and whether or not remitting the income back to Oz brings it into Oz tax

thanks for the info AB - I know that pro footballers in the old 1st division were paid 'offshore' cos' an old mate who played for one of the BIG clubs in the northwest and at least one very senior england player at the time were paid into acounts in Luxemburg if I recall correctly (could have been Leichenstein) - that's in addition to the incentives offered to parents of young kids to join their clubs ie cars etc
I'm sure there are loopholes used by pro sportsmen in britain (overseas or home grown) that are perfectly legal and above board especially when it comes to overseas players
In the 70s & 80s I was in the Mercahnt Navy and was exempt from uK tax,quite legally thanks to the regulations at the time (and still exist as you intimate) - nice work,if you can get it !

The cheeky blighters have asked the RFL to wave points deduction as they have 'been punished enough by inherited debt' err hello who put the club into administration?

See you later Crusaders, hello Vikings...

Crusaders will probably escape this year but I wonder what action Super League are planning when the new company goes belly up this time next year?

As fans we'd better make the most of next season then.

I am confident we can come out of the other side of this a stronger set up but at the moment the silence is unbearable.

There is also talk of a group from South Wales looking to take the club back to Bridgend. You couldn't make it up.

What's cheeky about that?It's a very resonable request if you ask me.In fact,instead of starting the season on minus six points I think,as an expansion club,they ought to start on plus six points.

I say start them on +55 then they can be minor premiers.

And we briefly asked the RFL to waive our relegation at the end of 2006 because we had 19 pts (yes, I know, we're an expansion club who only joined the league in 1926 ) before we saw sense. And I'm fairly sure that in the same year, Wigan asked the RFL not to punish them at all over the salary cap breach. There's nothing unique in asking for things.

Correct , we asked the RFL to use the nearly completed LSV stadium for our franchise application in 2008 , they refused that as well

Yet Salfords patch of earth was fit for SL in 2008

There are people on this board who can make anything up.

Not wishing to sound too ignorant here. But how can a business that is in administration, ie creditors will only get so much in the pound if anything. Then announce that the RFL is giving them money to pay the players wages IN FULL at the end of the month. Am I not right in thinking the players are now creditors like any other and not preferential creditors.

Can someone tell us the full 100% truth at what is going on, and who is the employer for the two players they signed two days before a pre-arranged administration hearing.

Something doesn't smell right at all

Wrexham village probably