Former England and Liverpool legend John Barnes has officially been declared bankrupt after his media company reportedly accumulated debts exceeding £1.5 million. According to a notice in the London Gazette, the High Court of Justice issued the bankruptcy order on 23 September 2025, following a petition by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) filed in August.
The liquidation report for John Barnes Media Limited shows liabilities including: £776,878 owed to HMRC in unpaid VAT, National Insurance contributions, and PAYE; £461,849 owed to unsecured creditors; a director’s loan of around £226,000; and £56,535 in fees related to the liquidation process. Barnes has admitted that over several years he lost between £1 million and £1.5 million, laying much of the blame on misplaced trust in advisers.
He has expressed surprise at the bankruptcy order, despite having made repayments and currently paying HMRC £10,000 a month. Barnes said that after selling what he could, he no longer has assets to protect, and emphasized his willingness to settle his tax obligations rather than avoid them.
This is not Barnes’ first brush with insolvency. He has faced multiple bankruptcy petitions since 2010. In 2023 he narrowly avoided a bankruptcy over a £238,000 tax bill. In 2024, his media company failed to pay more than £190,000 in corporation tax and VAT between 2018 and 2020, leading to a disqualification from serving as a company director for three and a half years.
Barnes’ spell at Liverpool was one of the defining periods of his football career. He joined Liverpool from Watford in June 1987 for a fee of about £900,000. Over the next decade (1987–1997), he made over 400 appearances and scored 108 goals for the club. With Liverpool, he won two league titles (1987-88, 1989-90), at least two FA Cups (including 1989), and a League Cup in 1995. During the 1989-90 season he was Liverpool’s top scorer in the league with 22 goals.
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