The Post reported that former Liverpool defender and 47-year-old Irish player Steve Finnan was once a star player in the Premier League and won the Champions League and FA Cup for Liverpool in the 2000s. However, he ran into financial troubles as a...
The Post reported that former Liverpool defender and 47-year-old Irish player Steve Finnan was once a star player in the Premier League and won the Champions League and FA Cup for Liverpool in the 2000s. However, he ran into financial troubles as a result of a decade-long legal dispute with his brother Sean. The feud started when the brothers invested in a failed real estate business together in their early years.
In 2016, 49-year-old Sean sued his younger brother for the first time because of concerns about poor business management. The parties reached a £4 million settlement at the High Court in 2018. But the former football player did not receive the payment, and his brother was declared bankrupt in July 2019. Finnan then launched a series of court battles with lawyers, including an unsuccessful negligence claim for around £6 million. The case ended with Finnan paying a five-figure fee. After failing to repay his debts, and according to The Independent , Finnan now faces a bankruptcy application at the County Court in Central London. On Monday, Finnan attended a High Court hearing in an attempt to appeal a ruling in a previous bankruptcy case. However, the judge told him his appeal was "hopeless" and was just "delaying" time.
It was revealed that Finnan had to sell his 2005 Champions League medal for at least £12,000 and also sold the shirt he wore in the 2020 game as he tried to pay hefty court costs.
Finnan was born in Limerick. He started his career with Welwyn United in the non-professional league, and then gradually climbed to the top of the English football pyramid, playing for Liverpool from 2003 to 2008. He played 52 times for the national team and helped the team reverse AC Milan to win the 2005 Champions League final. It is worth mentioning that he is the only player to have participated in the World Cup, Champions League, Europa League, Intertoto Cup, England's fourth-tier league and the National League.
After retiring, Finnan devoted himself to the real estate industry and co-operated a real estate company in southwest London with his brother Sean. The company's assets include a large house next to Wimbledon Green, the nearby Ridgeway Place property and several other apartments. However, starting in 2016, Finnan began to express concerns about the company's operations. He sent an email to company lawyers complaining that despite his substantial financial support, the two companies seemed to be running out of money, in part due to Sean's personal profligacy. In addition, he also pointed out that the company spent too much on legal matters and that the transactions between his brother and contractors were too expensive and there was a risk of loan defaults.
Finnan initially entrusted Charles Russell Law Firm to file an "unfair prejudice" lawsuit, but the two parties ultimately chose to settle out of court. Sean agreed to transfer his shares in Green Real Estate Company to his brother and pay 4 million pounds in compensation. However, the payment was not materialized, leading Finnan to file for bankruptcy against his brother in 2019.
In order to recover the losses, Finnan turned to sue the original legal team, claiming that the other party should have advised him to demand repayment of the loan he lent to the company as a director instead of filing an "unfair prejudice" lawsuit. He said he lost more than 6 million pounds as a result, including a 3.3 million pound loan to the company, 2.6 million pounds worth of stocks and about 400,000 pounds in legal fees.
However, the court rejected Finnan’s claim and held that regardless of whether he received relevant advice or not, he had in fact made a request for repayment but received no response. Ms Justice McGuire noted: "There is no evidence that making such a claim would have resulted in a better outcome than the plaintiff actually obtained."
