Sir Bradley Wiggins has "lost absolutely everything and doesn't have a penny" after bankruptcy, reveals lawyer

In a shocking turn of events that has left Britain's third-most decorated Olympian "embarrassed", Sir Bradley Wiggins, who was declared bankrupt last week, has been forced to sleep on the couches of friends and families and is basically homeless, after his lawyer revealed that he "has lost lost absolutely everything" and "doesn't have a penny".

News broke last weekend that Wiggins, who retired in 2016 after a glittering professional cycling career, becoming the first British rider to win the Tour de France and winning eight Olympic medals, five of them gold, was declared bankrupt. He could also be forced to sell all his trophies and medals — including his bespoke Tour trophy that he won in 2012.

The 44-year-old had been facing financial difficulties for the last few years. In 2020, his company Wiggins Rights Limited entered voluntary liquidation, with creditors including HM ­Revenue & Customs, who were owed over £300,000. 

In November last year, there were already reports that Wiggins was facing bankruptcy over unpaid debts totalling nearly £1 million, after documents filed at Companies House by liquidators revealed that he was yet to repay any of the money he was said to have agreed to satisfy about to a loan made to him.

> Sir Bradley Wiggins' medals and trophies set to be seized after being declared bankrupt

However, the news still came as a shock to many, with fans extending their sympathies and hoping for a bounce-back for Wiggins. Now, his lawyer's comments, reported by Daily Mail, have shone light on his compounded miseries that have come with his financial ordeals.

"In reality, Brad is sofa-surfing. He stays with friends and family. I don’t know where he stayed last night, I don’t know where he will stay tonight or tomorrow night. He doesn’t have an address... It is a total mess," said barrister Alan Sellers, head of sports law at Liverpool solicitors Bond Turner. 

"He has lost absolutely everything. His family home, his home in Majorca, his savings and investments. He doesn’t have a penny. It’s a very sad state of affairs."

Sellers added that the former Team Sky rider, who was an integral part of a squad that would begin the domination of world cycling for years to come, was left "embarrassed". He said: "I've said to Bradley that 'what you’ve achieved can never be taken away from you. Life will be better when you’re debt free. And you’ve still got the support of the public'."

> Check out Bradley Wiggins’ UCI Hour Record Pinarello Bolide HR

Wiggins, who was reportedly worth £13million as recently as 2017, has a long list of varied creditors, ranging from HM Revenue and Customs to a 25-year-old former rider with Team Wiggins, the cycling outfit he set up to nurture young talent, who is claiming an unpaid sum of £583.

After the bankruptcy hearing at Lancaster County Court, Paul Rouse, head of client services at the accountancy firm Forvis Mazars had said that "a bankruptcy trustee will be appointed to seize and sell his assets, potentially including medals and trophies of his successful sporting past, as was the case with Boris Becker recently".

The Mail also reports that it will be for the trustee Kevin Murphy to decide whether they must be sold off, with one sports memorabilia valuer claiming that his five gold medals alone could together fetch up to £250,000.

It seems that Sellers has confirmed that Wiggins doesn't hold a lot of adoration for his medals, seeing them as "meaningless junk". He had ‘smashed’ his BBC sports personality trophy – a silver-plated replica TV camera – and keeps his gold medals in a Co-op carrier bag.

Wiggins joins a long list of sports personalities, including the aforementioned tennis star Boris Becker and boxer Joe Louis, who have been let down on the financial side by their advisers and consultants, with Sellers saying that he has been hard done by their errors.

He said: "There seems to be this army of so-called advisers who quite frankly rip these people off. And they are so busy being sportsmen that when it comes to their financial affairs, they just get shafted. That’s what happened to Brad."

Rouse had similar thoughts after the hearing last week, saying: "Those involved in elite sport are often focussed solely on their primary goals of winning titles and striving for sporting excellence.

"Professionals will surround them to advise on the financial benefits that follow that success, and they would be wise to ensure that their chosen advisors are trustworthy, and that they are safeguarding their client’s long-term position."

By the time he won his final gold medal in Rio in 2016, he ranke only behind Sir Andy Murray and golfer Justin Rose as the highest-earning Briton in sport, with his off-bike affairs were being handled by Simon Fuller’s XIX agency, who also managed David Beckham and Lewis Hamilton.

They helped him start Team Wiggins, making him one of the few riders to head his own bike-racing stable, and fulfilling his ambition to help grassroots cyclists maximise their potential.

> Bradley Wiggins says "borderline rape" by former coach led to him using "cycling as distraction"

Since his retirement in 2016, however, he has spoken candidly of the pressures of coming to terms with fame, his struggles with depression and about the break-up of his marriage to his wife Cath, with whom he has two children, Ben and Bella.

A year ago, he also spoke out about the abuse he suffered as a child, calling it "borderline rape" and even let out the fact that he turned to cycling as a distraction. A few months later, he named Stan Knight, who died in 2003, as the coach who sexually abused him and other young riders.

He said that the coach would take him on training camps to a youth hostel in Dorset aged 12, sleep in the same bed and abuse him in the shower, accusations repeated in the account of another victim. He explained how the abuse would begin with "minor acts" presented under the pretence that Knight's actions were just to help with sporting performance.

In December 2020, not long after his company entered liquidation, a spokesperson said that Wiggins’s involvement in the business side of things was "not day to day," and that "this in no way affects Bradley's personal solvency."

As we reported in  the past, now Wiggins also risks losing the trademark rights to his own surname as well as his nickname ‘Wiggo’ which had been put up for sale by liquidators, while the supervisor of his Individual Voluntary Agreement (IVA), which the rider entered in 2020, had also issued him with a notice of breach of the terms of that agreement.

Wiggins had previously told Cycling Weekly that his financial difficulties are "a very historical matter that involves professional negligence from [others] that has left a s*** pile with my name at the front of it to deal with". 

Sellers added: "We tried to keep all this hidden under wraps and resolve these issues, but it had gone too far."