High-Level Athletes: 5 Tax Mistakes That Cost a Retirement

I’ve seen too many brilliant sporting careers end in financially poorly secured transitions. Not for lack of income. For lack of structure. Here are the five mistakes I see most often, mistakes that can always be avoided if addressed at the right time.

1. Confusing income with wealth

A big contract is not wealth. It’s a flow coming in, often heavily taxed, that funds a high standard of living. Until that flow is converted into assets that themselves generate income or future value, nothing is left once the career ends.

The right approach: every year of your career, set a concrete target for converting income into wealth (for example, 30% of net income). That’s what builds your retirement, not the promise of the next contract.

2. Neglecting the tax smoothing of exceptional income

Articles 163-0-A and 163-A of the French General Tax Code (CGI) allow, under certain conditions, exceptional income (bonuses, significant image rights) to be spread out or averaged for tax purposes. This can shift a 45% TMI (marginal tax rate) down to 30% for the year in question.

Very few athletes, or the people around them, know about this or make use of it. Yet it is one of the most powerful tools available at this income level.

3. Overlooking the PER’s specific value for highly variable income

A professional athlete can earn €800,000 one year and €50,000 the next. The PER (Plan d’Épargne Retraite, a French personal pension plan) allows you to contribute in the high-income years, deduct heavily at a 45% TMI, and withdraw in the low-income years at an 11% or 30% TMI. The 15 to 30 percentage-point gap in TMI between the active years and life after a career is literally converted into wealth.

The logic is the same for an executive or an artist with smoothed income, but for an athlete, it’s critical: the accumulation window is short, and every year of lost deduction can never be recovered.

4. Failing to prepare a legal structure for image rights and sponsorships

Image rights, sponsorship income, royalties: this income can often be housed within a dedicated structure (EURL, SARL, types of French limited-liability companies), allowing for:

• corporate tax (IS) at 25% instead of the personal TMI at 45%;
• control over dividends and compensation;
• preparation for the future transfer of the company.

This is a classic setup among English-speaking athletes, still underused in France. Tax savings over 5 to 10 years can exceed one million euros.

5. Putting off the transition question

A career transition isn’t prepared for when your career ends, it’s prepared for at least 5 years before. That means:

• enough liquid wealth to cover 3 to 5 years without major income;
• training or a professional project matured during the last years of your career;
• the capacity to invest in a new project (real estate, a company, long-term training) without touching your core wealth.

That’s what wealth is for: buying the freedom to transition. Poorly structured, it disappears within 2 to 3 years after a career ends, the classic scenario we see far too often.

What I do with the athletes I work with

The method is always the same: a full audit, tax structuring during the peak-earning years, setting up long-term vehicles, preparing the transition, ongoing follow-up. What changes is the speed of execution. For an athlete, the windows are short: we cannot afford to lose 18 months validating each decision.

If you’re active or nearing the end of your career and these words resonate, let’s talk. I lived in that world before making it my profession, it’s my way of giving back what sport taught me.