Kyzen Sports is the UK’s largest financial service provider for professional athletes, specialising in giving tax and wealth management advice.
It was created in 2016 in partnership with my school friend George Mansfield to help athletes manage their finances and plan for post-retirement careers.
Based in Liverpool, we employ almost 20 staff and are expanding rapidly.
What’s the idea behind the company?
I’m a professional footballer and having been in the sports industry all my life, it became clear just how few athletes are up to speed with financial matters.
Young people are so desperate to be a professional footballer that they spend their entire life working towards that goal with little thought for anything else such as managing finances, tax liabilities or pension plans.
But the truth is that very few footballers, or athletes in general, earn enough money to live comfortably when they can no longer compete professionally.
Kyzen Sports helps educate athletes from across the sporting spectrum about financial literacy and how to deal with important tasks such as filing a tax return or knowing how and where to invest.
George and I went to school together and Kyzen Sports has grown out of our shared passion for both sports and financial services.
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How has the company evolved over the past few years?
Kyzen Sports started off with just myself and George and we’ve grown it steadily over the past few years.
I’ve always run it alongside my playing career while I’ve been at clubs such as Bury and Wrexham and that hasn’t been easy.
But my experience being immersed in the world of football really opened my eyes to how important it is to help educate athletes on taking responsibility for their own finances and begin planning for life after retirement.
We’ve been fast growing our network of clients across different sports and developing our team to diversify the range of services we can offer.
Education has become a major part of what we do, and we now visit lots of football clubs to talk to players about what they should be doing to safeguard their finances and their futures.
What can we expect to see from Kyzen Sports in the future?
It’s an exciting time for us right now as we’re planning to double our staff in the next 18 months.
We are constantly working on training our team to provide the best possible service and diversifying what we offer.
One aspect we are working hard on is going into football clubs to carry out workshops educating players about financial requirements such as tax liabilities, but also the importance of planning for life after retirement and finding and developing their next passion.
There is clearly a demand for these types of services in professional sports and we are growing and developing to meet that demand.
