Professional footballers are too often treated by the financial system as “high net worth” or “sophisticated” investors. This classification strips them of the vital protections afforded to retail clients by the FCA and the Financial Ombudsman Service. In reality, they are among the most vulnerable groups in society when it comes to financial exploitation.
Their vulnerability arises not from lack of intelligence, but from the unique pressures of their profession: short career spans, volatile earnings, sudden wealth, and exposure to predatory intermediaries. Classifying them as sophisticated investors is a systemic failure that leaves them open to catastrophic losses — as the BBC’s recent reporting on the V11 campaign group has shown.
The Structural Problem with Intermediaries
The core issue lies in the structure of UK financial intermediation. By design, brokers and intermediaries act as agents of product providers, not of the client. The Supreme Court’s decision last month on car finance brokers confirmed that such actors cannot be expected to operate without conflicts of interest. They are even permitted, under UK law, to receive and retain commissions and inducements unless statute, regulation, or contract explicitly requires disclosure.
This is not a flaw in execution; it is the legal framework itself. The system is structurally untrustworthy. No footballer — indeed, no retail client — should be advised under such conditions.
A Safer Alternative: Impartial, Non-Conflicted Professionals
Footballers do not need more intermediaries in sharper suits. They need genuine professional allies — advisers who sell no products, hold no agency with providers, and who sit squarely on the client’s side of the table. Only by removing financial incentives to sell can we remove the conflict of interest that has destroyed so many careers and lives.
Regulated advisers who do operate within the current framework should, at a minimum, be obliged to inform vulnerable clients such as footballers that safer, non-conflicted alternatives exist. Anything less is professional negligence in spirit, if not in law.
Footballers as Human Beings, Not Balance Sheets
Patrick Foley of Sonar Financial Services rightly points out that footballers’ financial wellbeing should be seen as part of their welfare, alongside physical and mental health. This is true. But good intentions are not enough when the system itself is structurally compromised.
Consider the contrast: a fitness coach could not lawfully take undisclosed payments from supplement companies while recommending them to players — consumer protection and advertising law require disclosure of such arrangements. Yet financial intermediaries in the UK may lawfully conceal commissions unless specific rules demand transparency. That double standard is indefensible.
Time for Reform
The cultural change the industry needs cannot come from more self-policing. It requires regulatory reform, greater transparency, and the normalisation of product-free financial planning. Footballers deserve to know that they are not alone, that there are trustworthy professionals ready to serve them without hidden agendas.
Until then, they — like all retail clients — should be treated as vulnerable by default, protected by law, and steered away from conflicted intermediaries. Anything less is a betrayal not just of their trust, but of the principle of fair and honest finance itself.
About Get SAFE
Get SAFE (Support After Financial Exploitation) was born from a simple truth: too many victims of financial abuse are left to suffer in silence.
We exist for people like Ian—for the ones who did everything right, only to be failed by the systems they trusted. We know that behind every vanished pension, every ignored complaint, and every stonewalled letter is a person—frightened, exhausted, and too often alone.
Get SAFE offers more than sympathy. We offer structure, support, and solidarity.
We provide a voice where there’s been silence, and clarity where there’s been confusion.
We stand beside those who have been exploited, not just to help them recover—but to help them reclaim their story and rebuild their future.
Because financial justice is not a luxury.
It’s a human right.
If you or someone you know has been affected by financial exploitation, we are here.
You are not alone.
Learn more at: Get SAFE (Support After Financial Exploitation).
Academy of Life Planning 
Reader’s Question:
“The scams against footballers is closer to that of QROPS than perhaps people think. The advisers know in both instances that it is an immediate big payday and large amounts of money will be instantly placed into funds and simply disappear. Large commissions hit their bank accounts in weeks and not years. When an investor places a percentage of earnings into schemes, they have more control, as they are able to walk away or transfer without the heavy penalties involved and the adviser gains commission on the drip. .
There is one point made that perhaps needs reconsidering with regards there are ‘safer’ options available. I like many others placed our pension funds into low risk schemes, only to find they were no safer than the higher risk investments platforms and in some instances people were placed into the high risk investments without their knowledge.”
My reply:
“You’re absolutely right — what was presented to you (and many others) as “low risk” turned out not to be. The problem is that risk doesn’t just sit in the label of a product. Every layer of middlemen and structures adds hidden exposures:
Each layer brings risks — counterparty risk, market risk, concentration risk, shortfall risk, and so on. So when you thought you were in “low risk,” in reality you were carrying multiple hidden risks that no one properly disclosed.
The real issue is this: you never had an impartial professional ally on your side who understood those risks and could help you make an informed choice. Instead, you were placed into a structurally untrustworthy system designed to protect itself, not you.
That’s why the Supreme Court’s recent judgment on car finance brokers matters — it confirmed what victims like you already know: intermediaries cannot be relied upon to put clients first unless the law explicitly forces them to.
The safest approach is often the simplest: keep things transparent, in your own name, and avoid unnecessary complexity. But that message doesn’t earn commissions, so clients are rarely told it.
For your redress journey, the key point is this: you were promised safety, but delivered exposure. That mismatch — between what you were led to believe and the reality of the risks — is where accountability lies.”
Steve