If the image has a value, and the player or manager wants to hold this in a separate entity in order to protect and separately manage those rights, the image should be valued and the rights transferred to a company.

Once the company is established and the rights transferred, then on any future transfer a club will need to negotiate a deal between the player or manager for their performance duties. In addition, if they want access to the individual's image for commercial activities, the club will separately need to negotiate a deal with the image rights company.

Typically, players and managers have existing image rights companies in place when they move to a new club. The initial valuation work is therefore unnecessary, and the club and the player's advisors on behalf of the image rights company will agree a fair market rate for the image rights contract. This is often agreed at the same time as the individual's employment contract, which is why HMRC often seek to challenge such agreements as effectively 'disguised remuneration'. Consequently, ensuring that separate discussions take place and are clearly documented between a) a players advisors and the club in relation to an individual's employment contract, and b) between the image rights company and the club in relation to the image rights contract is crucial.

Often, the individual will not be UK domiciled for tax purposes and will have worked in a number of other countries before coming to the UK. Consequently, the individual's image rights may be more popular outside the UK than in the UK. In that scenario, the individual might establish two image rights companies; a UK resident company to manage UK rights, and a non-UK resident company to manage non-UK rights. There is often clearly a tax benefit for doing so, as it ensures that non-UK source income from personal commercial deals are not brought into the UK tax net for non-domiciled individuals. However, there are often also significant commercial benefits; the non-UK resident company often has access to or knowledge of non-UK markets and can therefore maximise the value of such rights. There is no reason why non-UK rights of a player or manager currently working in the UK would need to be managed in the UK.