English Open

I know that ultimately it's all about money - otherwise last weeks event on a cabbage patch wouldn't have happened - but cancelled English Open so just The Open and PGA this year? I'll be sticking to watching the International Qualifying for Open and US Open for top quality golf viewing. Sad we can't drum up interest/sponsorship for more golf in England.

Can only agree.

puligny wrote:I know that ultimately it's all about money - otherwise last weeks event on a cabbage patch wouldn't have happened - but cancelled English Open so just The Open and PGA this year? Sad we can't drum up interest/sponsorship for more golf in England.

It's not just about interest/event sponsorship anymore but also the tax regime in the UK makes golfers disinclined to play more than a couple of events per year in the UK.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/money/tax/article6991066.ece
http://www.farrer.co.uk/index.php?option=com_flexicontent&view=items&cid=262%3Aour_briefings&id=1346%3Aon-our-way-to-wembley-tax-treatment-of-sportsmen&Itemid=3

Its all due to our current tax laws, the companies are seeing no benefit in sponsoring the events and a lot of players see even less benefit in playing here. Its made events like the World Matchplay which was the culmination in the ET season with the years 4 majors winners now a virtually non event and is no longer in this country.

We've lost events like the Benson and Hedges at the Oxfordshire, The English Masters at the Forest of Arden and now the English Open at St Mellion this country has the courses to showcase top ET events in all areas north, south, east and west. No longer though you also have to fear for the prestigious events such as the PGA and the scottish Open as if they were ever to lose sponsor or tax gets worse in this country the big players simply will not play

Agree on the tax issue and maybe soon it will be reviewed. The government had to change the tax laws for the Champions league Final later this year, otherwise the team would have refused to come. They also had to ammend it for the Olympics etc. Osborne said in his budget that the higher tax threshold is going to be looked at soon.

Quite simply sportsmen who earn money in tournament play like golfers, tennis players etc have no financial reason to compete here as any winnings are virtually halved by our tax system the only exception is premier league footballers where they are guaranteed such a significant amount each week after tax it doesn't matter to them.

We are going to be soon left with hardly any live sporting events

A very sad state of affairs indeed.

I agree on the tax issues but when you factor in the revenue earned from hosting major sporting events it is very short sighted. All these great courses not showcased to the world. Great shame.

There are a lot of politics involved, Heythrop Park near where I live tried to get this years English Open, the owner (Mr Kassam owner of Oxford United) was going to fund most of it himself (and reap the rewards the exposure would bring). For some reason we are not sure of he was unsuccessful, but it wasn't for lack of money.

Communism is still alive. It's ridicolous.

I'm a bit curious - does anyone know whether the difficult tax issue is treatment of winnings (for non-resident sportspersons) or sponsorship income (Agassi court case), or both?

It's occurred to me that neither point should affect UK residents because they should pay UK tax on all their income anyway (although I should point out that I know more about corporate than personal tax), and we have a quite a few good home-based golfers - wonder if they are difficult to sign up to an English Open type event, or if their names are not big enough draw for sponsors.

[As an aside, I'm also curious as to what happened re: the visiting Ryder Cup players, as I remember the point being raised a while ago and speculation that T Woods would have £1m tax bill yet no tournament earnings - my unfounded suspicion is that HMRC have not pressed the Agassi point too hard as the players were all wearing RC "uniforms" and not clothing with prominent sponsor logos]

Skydriver - if you're in corporate tax the image question might be more relevant to your line of work than you think as most sportspeople place their image rights in an offshore company and shelter the money that way. Our tax authorities don't like this but haven't busted it yet.

I'm in personal tax and I think the high tax rate has been a problem in attracting offshore sports stars, but even more so has been a recent change in stance from HMRC. It used to be the case that HMRC would look to tax the proportion of a sportsperson's income that could be attributed to work performed in the UK, the same as any other profession.

In the past this was always apportioned on a days of the year basis. So if you're in the UK for 4 days a year to play 1 tournament, 4/365ths of your annual income can be taxed by the UK.
But since 2006 (if memory serves) HMRC took a harder line on the apportionment for sportspersons on the grounds that they don't work 365 days a year. So if a golfer comes here for one tournament, and plays 10 tournaments a year the UK now want to tax 1/10th of their annual income.
This leads to the ridiculous situation where a golfer can come here, play a tounrmament, finish say 5th and pay more in UK tax than they won.

Oddly, they stay away!!

I believe Bernie Ecclestone had sorted the F1 issue out with Blair a few years ago, otherwise there would not be a GP in this country. I'm sure he got some concessions due to the fact that most of the manufacturers are UK based, ie Milton keynes, Oxfordshire area, and it provides a lot of high tech employment. Yet all the drivers live in Monaco

We all know the stupidity of the top footballers wage situation - but have you ever wondered why when they play for England, that their wages are put into a charitable trust.

Maybe there is a bit of logic with the relatively high tax for sportspeople in the UK. If they pay higher tax then the government can give people more benefits so that they are able to stay off work and watch sporting events thus increasing the viewers for said sportspeople. The social circle of life...

Sharrison - good logic, although i suspect the reality is more along the lines of - expect them to pay higher tax, so they all buggar off and the country actually takes less tax, but the government pay out more in benefits anyway, eventually leading to you and i paying the higher tax!

Oh hang on, we're already there......