Darts legend Mervyn King declared bankrupt and may be forced out of home: "You think the gravy train will last for ever and it doesn’t"

Mervyn King, a two-time finalist at the Lakeside World Championship, fears he will lose his home and struggle to care for his three dogs after he was officially declared bankrupt.

The 58-year-old darts veteran says he has accumulated a tax debt of more than £500,000 with the British Revenue and Customs (HMRC). King admits he ignored his financial problems for years: “I hid my head in the sand,”

On Tuesday, March 5, King was declared bankrupt by the High Court of Justice in London. Now that he and his wife Tracey may lose their home, they must look for a new home that will also accommodate their three large dogs - a Pyrenean Mountain Dog, a Pyrenean-Newfoundland cross and a Golden Retriever. In a candid interview with SunSport, King admitted his problems. “Tracey is worried that we’re going to lose the house. But if we do, we do. There’s nothing I can do about that. It’s all down to the official receiver and what he wants to do. I’ll have to deal with him fairly and honestly, so anything he wants to know, he can have."

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King had already resigned himself to his fate and knew this moment would come. “I made the move to contact them. I knew this was coming," he explains. "It was better than them finding me and saying, ‘Excuse us Mr King, why haven’t you paid tax for 20 years?’.  Because I think I’d have been straight inside. Now it’s all going to be cleared one way or another — whether I lose everything and the house goes. If it does, then at least it’s back to square one and I’ll start again."

The uncertainty about their living space is of course not good, but it is a problem exacerbated by the love of their dogs. “The dogs are a worry. If they take the house, we’re going to have to find somewhere to live. We’ll have to take the dogs with us," says King. “Over the past four or five years, I haven’t slept a lot at night, worrying about this. The trouble is you think the gravy train will last for ever and it doesn’t. I cannot turn back time, unfortunately.”

King in action

In the 1990s and early 2000s, the Ipswich-born darter was one of the biggest names in the sport. In 2002 he lost the Lakeside final to Australian Tony David, and in 2004 he faced Andy Fordham. When he switched to the PDC in 2007, he earned significantly more prize money, but he never reported it to the IRS. King mistakenly thought his earnings fell under "winnings" and were not taxed as "income".

During the corona pandemic, the seriousness of the situation became clear. He began delivering packages for Amazon and realized that bankruptcy was inevitable. King tried to set up another construction company, but had to discontinue it because, as a bankrupt, he is no longer allowed to run a business. Now he wants to make a living by competing on the Challenge Tour and the senior circuit, since he lost his professional Tour Card at the end of 2024.

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A warning for young players

King wants to get his story out there to prevent others from ending up in the same situation. “It’s trying to help others so they don’t end up in this position. It’s not a place to be, trust me. I wouldn’t wish this on anybody," he warns. “I want to hopefully try to help any up-and-coming youngsters so they don’t end up in the same predicament as I did. If I can help one youngster, then it’s worth doing."

His advice to up-and-coming darters is clear. “My message is: don’t do what I did. Don’t hide your head in the sand when you realise you’re in a bit of a slump with HMRC. For want of a better word, I was quite naive when it came to tax. Believe it or not, I actually thought with it being winnings, I didn’t have to pay tax on it, because it wasn’t earnings as such. I was then waiting for that big win, that really big win, so I could square everything up."

According to King, the dart organizations BDO and PDC had very little guidance in this area. “They paid your prize money and left you to it. When I found out I should be paying tax, I was already x-number of pounds in debt to HMRC. It gets to a couple of years down the line and I’m in even more debt to HMRC," King concludes. “You think, ‘How the hell am I going to be able to pay this?’. It has been a very scary thing.”

The former top player has had hard times and an uncertain future ahead of him, but hopes his story will help others avoid making the same mistakes.

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