Former Scotland and Blackburn Rovers captain Colin Hendry has been discharged from his bankruptcy and will only have to pay back £36,000 of a £2.1 million debt.
Hendry, who also played for Glasgow Rangers, turned to drink and gambling after the death of his wife Denise and was declared insolvent in June of last year.
Creditors were contacted by Hendry’s solicitor in writing to inform them that the retired star would be paying back £1000 pounds a month for the next three years – less than 2 percent of the original debt.
One of the creditors, Hector McFarlane, is a former friend of Hendry and claims that the ex-player borrowed £95,000 from McFarlane and his wife in the knowledge that his debts were going to force him into bankruptcy.
Mr McFarlane was incredulous when he spoke to the Daily Record: “I am just flabbergasted. I stand to get back £1800 of the money I loaned him. It’s an absolute disgrace.”
McFarlane also claimed that Hendry, who is a football pundit for ESPN, was still able to live comfortably, despite the repayments he has to make: “His lifestyle has hardly changed,” he said.
“He lives one of the best lifestyles of people I know. I gather he gets more than £1000 a game as a TV pundit. My wife and I have not received one penny of the £95,000 he owed us, while he can get on with his life.”
HMRC largest creditor
The largest of Hendry’s creditors was HMRC, owing them £1.3 million, but he also owed £65,000 to his late father’s estate, £35,000 to his brother and £10,000 to Denise’s parents. The case for his bankruptcy was brought by the spread betting firm Spreadex.
Hendry’s luxury home in Lytham, Lancashire was sold but it was reported that the sale was only enough to pay off mortgages and secured loans on the property.
Denise died in 2009 and Hendry admitted to falling into a destructive cycle of gambling and alcohol abuse because of his grief to the Daily Record: “I did drink quite a lot initially. And I gambled – not as badly as has been reported. I’m not a bad guy. I’ve made mistakes in my life, like most people have.”
James Falla, senior debt expert at Beat My Debt says that he is not surprised by the frustration of some of Hendry’s creditors but the returns they expect to receive are not unusual.
“In bankruptcy the average return to creditors is generally regarded to be around 2 percent of the debt owed so this case is not particularly unusual” he said.
“The petitioning creditor may well stand to get more of their debt repaid as they are preferred over all other creditors. However, where there are little or no assets as seems to be the situation in Mr Hendry’s case the majority of creditors will receive very little. Very often this will push some of them into a situation where they are facing financial difficulty themselves” he added.
This is a tragedy for Colin and his family and we can only imagine what he has gone through, however it is a lesson learnt when contemplating borrowing finance from family and friends, corporate debt is much simpler to address. Colin admitted mistakes and he isn’t the only one past and future to make them. He was a great footballer, I watched him play many games, he utilised all of his assets on the pitch, unfortunately of it, he didn’t, but lets remember he lost his greatest asset, Denise. We can all learn from this, you don’t know what is round the corner and what effect it may have on you – Good Luck Colin.