Westlife singer Shane Filan is declared bankrupt - BBC News
Westlife singer Shane Filan has been declared bankrupt in the UK.
The Irish band have sold millions of records but Mr Filan suffered enormous losses in his country's property crash.
In a statement, the 32-year-old said he had "worked long and hard" to tackle his debts and was devastated that his problems have come to this conclusion.
The pop star filed for bankruptcy in the UK which has a less onerous bankruptcy regime than the Republic of Ireland.
In the UK the period of bankruptcy typically lasts for a year but in the Republic of Ireland it is at least three years and more commonly 12 years.
Mr Filan owns a property company, Shafin Developments Limited, with his brother Finbarr.
It was established in 2004 and had been involved in developments in Counties Leitrim and Sligo in the west of Ireland.
Last month, the company was placed in receivership.
EscapeEarlier this week, the singer was declared bankrupt at Kingston-upon-Thames County Court and his name has been placed on the UK insolvency register.
The father-of-three is the latest in a steady stream of highly indebted Irish property developers who have filed for bankruptcy in the UK.
Ireland has agreed to liberalise its bankruptcy regime as one of the conditions of its EU/ IMF bailout.
However the country's banks are concerned that the reforms could lead to a flood of mortgage defaults as ordinary homeowners use bankruptcy to escape from negative equity.
Westlife is one of the most successful boy bands of the last decade, selling more than 44m records.
Last October, they announced they were splitting up.
The band is currently in the middle of a farewell tour and continues to fill major concert venues.
Walters counts his blessings with Ireland - UEFA
Jon Walters does not feel under pressure. He knows he will be playing in front of 46,000 people tomorrow, knows he will be facing one of the greatest sides in the world – and possibly in history – and knows a defeat will deny the Republic of Ireland a chance to qualify for the UEFA EURO 2012 quarter-finals.
But pressure? He knows what real pressure is. Eight years ago his daughter, Scarlett, was born with her intestines outside her body. For the first two years of her life, Walters, his wife and their daughter were in and out of hospital. His football career, meanwhile, was meandering around in the fourth tier of the English league system, the polar opposite to where it is right now. Yet that did not matter. Scarlett's health did.
It was only as his daughter fully recovered that Walters' career moved forward too. Ipswich Town FC brought him to the English second division; Tony Pulis brought him to Stoke City FC and to prominence. And now, here he is, set for another promotion, a place in the Irish starting XI to face Spain with the eyes of the world upon him.
"I feel blessed to be in the position I am, and as footballers we all should," he said. "There are people losing their jobs all over the world at the moment. I do a lot of work in a children's hospice back home and when I see those kids, I know I am blessed. When I went down the leagues [playing for Wrexham AFC and Chester City FC], I made a lot of friends who are now going out of the game. An injury in one of those seasons could have finished my career permanently, so yes, I know I'm lucky to be here, but I'll take it all in my stride – I don't get overawed by anything really. I'm just ready to take in any situation that appears."
The situation appearing in front of Walters and Ireland now is difficult. With Italy and Spain drawing last Sunday, and Croatia collecting three points from the Poznan encounter, Ireland have to collect four points from their concluding two group games to qualify for the quarter-finals. The problem is, those two games are against Spain and Italy.
Walters said: "The result was obviously a kick in the teeth, but the majority of our players have had setbacks in our careers all the way through, and that's important, because it's not so much how you react after getting a result and winning; you see players' characters after a defeat. You see how much they want it, and hopefully we will want it more than Spain come the game.
"I'm fully confident we can go there and give it a right go," he added. "OK, they have got the world's best players, but you're going out there against 11 men, it's not 11 superheroes
. You look at games going on in the season. People said Barcelona were unbeatable in Europe, and Chelsea went and beat them in a semi-final of the Champions League and are now European champions.
"People always say Barcelona are the better team because they play through the pitch and they play attractive football, but in certain games you're not always going to play attractive football. You go out there to get the result, and in a couple of years' time it's not how well you play; you look back at results and that's all that matters."
Australia player strike threatens England tour - ESPN.co.uk
Australia's cricketers will fly out for a one-day tour of England and Ireland on Thursday knowing that time is running out for a new pay deal to be signed. Cricket Australia and the Australian Cricketers' Association (ACA) were due to resume negotiations on Thursday as they aim to find common ground on a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), with the existing agreement to expire on June 30.
If a new MoU is not completed by then, Australia's players will need to decide whether to play on - they will have four ODIs remaining against England in early July - or call a strike. Australia's Twenty20 captain and one-day batsman George Bailey, who is also a member of the ACA executive committee, said the players remained hopeful that they would not be put in such a difficult position.
"The players still have full faith that the ACA and CA will be able to sort out the differences they have at the moment and come to a conclusion," Bailey said. "Whenever there's talk of a strike I think that's very much a last, last resort. It would be a disaster if both the ACA and CA got to the stage where that had to occur. I've still got full faith that both parties will be able to rectify that in the next few days."
It is not just the national players who could be affected by the ongoing failure to reach a deal. State cricketers have been left in limbo, not knowing whether they will have a contract for next season and unable to negotiate a move interstate, as Cricket Australia has banned any player movements until a new MoU is agreed.
That has left a number of domestic players with no choice but to train with their existing state in the knowledge that they might not be part of the squad next summer. Bailey, the captain of Tasmania, said it was a difficult situation for some players, particularly those on the fringes of the state system who did not know what their immediate future would hold.
"There's players who are in a position where they aren't sure whether they should be training because the reality is they might not be playing for Tassie in a few months," he said. "It's that balance of should they be looking for work or should they be talking to other states, who actually aren't allowed to talk to them at the moment. It's a bit of a challenge for those guys.
"They're probably the guys you feel for most, the guys at the domestic level who are in limbo, not knowing where they're going to be playing, who they're going to be playing for, and the state associations are looking at who they're going to recruit, who they're going to contract. At that level you can understand the state associations are starting to get pretty frustrated and players would be wanting to know what's going on. It's probably less so at the national level."
The Australians begin their tour with a one-off ODI against Ireland in Belfast on June 23, before a five-match series against England from June 29 to July 10. The squad features several men who are returning after spending time out of the national side, including the fast bowlers Pat Cummins and Mitchell Johnson, neither of whom have played for Australia since the tour of South Africa last November due to injuries.
The allrounder Steven Smith is also back in the mix, having been overlooked since the one-day portion of the South African tour in October. The bowlers will be under the guidance of Ali de Winter, the Tasmania assistant coach, who has been seconded to the squad as temporary bowling coach.
Brydon Coverdale is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo. He tweets here
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