Nerve 13 - Kop Out!

Kop Out!

The Cayman Islands is British territory, and is the fifth-largest financial centre in the world. Cayman's bank privacy laws and the lack of income taxes attract companies and individuals seeking to maximise profits.
Offshore tax havens like the Cayman Islands offer attractive financial deals, and access to capital markets at a much lower cost than on the mainland. They also guarantee almost complete secrecy about financial deals and assets they hold.

Liverpool FC have once again finished fourth in the league. This time, though, it is fourth from bottom. According to Ethical Consumer the club has a pretty poor record when it comes to workers’ rights. The article states "While workers in the UK get ripped off by Premiership clubs, those in factories which make replica football strips which are a major money spinner for the clubs also suffer." The company providing strips for LFC is Adidas, who have failed to: "live up to promises to offer decent, fair standards of employment for all the workers in their supply chain."(1)

But it isn't only these workers that are poorly treated. LFC, according to an article in the Guardian, put out "One advert for a kitchen porter to work at Heathcote's at Anfield, the fine-dining end of Liverpool's matchday experience, [which] specified the wage… of £5.52 per hour", the legal minimum. Mark Donn, the Fair Pay Network's director, is quoted in the same article as saying, "Football must be one of the most unequal industries we have: an extremely wealthy sport with people servicing it who are living in working poverty."(2)

While keeping wages down LFC avoid paying full taxes by channelling profits through tax havens:

"Liverpool are now owned by a company which has a head office in Dallas, Texas, but is registered, so as not to pay much tax, in Delaware, by way of the Cayman Islands."(2)

As the team run onto the pitch in sponsored shirts promoting a drug which is often a factor in domestic violence and town centre mayhem on a Saturday night, is it any wonder that there is a call to.....“Get Our Game Back”

Sarah Irving, 'The Beautiful Game?' Ethical Consumer, Nov/Dec 2008
David Conn, 'Football's plutocrats resist call for living wage for staff', Guardian, 29.10.08
David Conn, ‘Indebted FC: born in Liverpool, owned in Dallas, Delaware and the Cayman Islands, Guardian, 14.03.07

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