Dodgy Business

Predictably, there was a great hue and cry in the British media when Lewis Hamilton let it be known that he was moving to Switzerland last week. Why anybody thinks it's their business is beyond me.

Granted, the timing could have been better, coming a few days before Lewis was due at Waterstone's in London to sign copies of 'My Story' and meet the great British public. But again, so what?

I was surprised to find PR guru Max Clifford among those lining up to have a pop. Clifford knows how the world works, and the bottom line is that nobody who is about to earn the kind of money coming Hamilton's way is going to hang around and throw 40 percent of it at the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

He seemed to be suggesting that many of his clients, infinitely better known than Hamilton, had managed to stay in the UK and set up foreign-based companies to get around the tax. But that's a lot more complicated.

Vevay - Villars, Switzerland © LAT

Monaco has apparently become a little less advantageous for the filthy rich. As a tax exile you can only be in the UK so many days, and it used to be that you didn't need to count your travelling time.

If you came to Blighty on a Monday morning and returned on Wednesday night, only Tuesday counted. But now they've tightened up on that, so Switzerland is apparently a better bet.

In the land of chocolate and cuckoo clocks, apparently you agree a flat rate of tax. Those who know about these things tell me that typically it's based on three times the rental value of your gaff.

So, say Lewis buys a modest million pound apartment on Lake Geneva, and you assume a seven percent rental yield, he still cops a tax bill of more than two hundred grand. But that's about a tenth of what he would have been paying in the UK based on estimates of £5 million (GBP) first year earnings.

Will Lewis earn that much in 2007? Including endorsements, probably. The Hamiltons' book deal, for instance, is believed to be worth £2 million alone.

And it's only just started for Lewis. When Clifford lobbed in his two pennorth, he was probably touting for business. In America, Forbes listed Tiger Woods as sport's highest earning athlete, on £50 million.

Second was boxer Oscar de la Hoya, who despite losing his fight with Floyd Mayweather, netted £23 million, which was slightly more than golfer Phil Mickelson. Newly crowned world champion Kimi Raikkonen was fourth, on £20 million.

As Jackie Stewart says, the sky's the limit for Lewis. The motor industry is bigger than the golf industry and it's not inconceivable that Hamilton stands to become the sport's first ever US dollar billionaire.

Stewart himself made the same move to Switzerland almost 40 years ago, when he, Jochen Rindt and Piers Courage all too briefly lived within sighting distance of each other on three different Swiss hills. It's hardly a new concept, but always an easy target for a spot of cheap ink.

I've never held with this assertion that sports stars owe anybody. Sure, the fan base, the interest, the adulation all prompt greater awareness and benefit the sportsman, but it was never their raison d'etre. It's a by-product, an incidental.

Lewis Hamilton didn't become a racing driver for Britain, he became a racing driver for Lewis Hamilton. And while the multi millions are all very nice, I'm sure he'd still drive if they weren't there.

Part of the problem seemed to be that he said he couldn't cope with all the attention in England. But what's he supposed to say? 'Sorry, I'm far too loaded to hang around here, cheerio folks...'?

Lewis Hamilton © LAT

And, if he'd fancied a quiet life in a Cotswold village he'd probably have gotten away with it, but considering the place he fancied living was London, you've got to admit that the attention would have been a pain in the butt. When you spend as much time on the road and on planes as Lewis will over the next few years, place of abode hardly matters.

Even motor racing hacks, on the relative pittance we earn, often get to the end of the season and wonder why we're living in Britain. Something to do with the fact that wherever we go, the sun's shining, and for the four months a year that we see home, it's hissing down.

But, like everyone else, the other half has a social scene, the kids are in school, etc, etc. A set of skis, bracing mountain air and bars of Milka chocolate (the purple one with the cow on the front) sound good to me. I admit it, I'm jealous! And that, I suspect, is the problem for many of Lewis's detractors.

Remember when British athlete Paula Radcliffe dropped out of the Olympic marathon when she fell out of the medal positions and was lambasted as a quitter? It was the same mentality there - lots of hysterical nonsense about representing your country, not giving up, etc, etc.

What a load of old Horlicks. There is no lonelier sport than distance running. OK, Paula was part of an Olympic team, but that's as far as it went.

She was the one running 20 miles at 6:00 am for years on end, fighting injury and sleeplessness in the Athens heat and suffering the shattering blow of being unable to perform in the most important race of her life. If it was too much, fair enough. Nothing to do with a bunch of couch potatoes watching the box in Blighty.

So, great to see her back winning the New York marathon again a few months after having a baby. She even managed to outsprint old Ethiopian nemesis Geta Wami, who used to have a propensity to piggy-back a ride and then nip by right at the end. Bravo!

And I've got to say how privileged I felt to be ringside in Cardiff's Millennium Stadium at 1:30 am on Sunday morning when Joe Calzaghe stepped into the ring and unified the World Super Middleweight titles after an absorbing 12 rounds against unbeaten Dane Mikkel Kessler.

Calzaghe would kill for the kind of terrestrial audience that Hamilton enjoys. He has been a world champion for ten years, but still people haven't heard of him. Which is why we were there in the small hours, pandering to the US pay networks in an attempt to lure a payday with big name American fighters who duck him because he's too good/too anonymous.

Mikkel Kessler v Joe Calzaghe, WBO/WBC/WBA World Super Middleweight Titles, Millennium Stadium, Cardiff © Reuters

Normally, bookies and sports pundits are somewhere close. But, last year, Calzaghe fought an unbeaten American, Jeff 'Left Hook' Lacy. Lacy came into the fight a narrow favourite. He didn't win a round. It was one of the best performances by a British sportsman I've ever seen. It should, by rights, have won Calzaghe the Sports Personality of the Year award. But that went to equestrian Zara Phillips.

On Saturday night, Kessler threw uppercuts that could have uprooted an oak tree, some of which Calzaghe parried with his chin. But, at 35, with the body clock ticking, he superbly overcame a talented, strong opponent seven years his junior. But it didn't make me feel proud to be British or any of that nonsense. I just watched in admiration.

Calzaghe won't be any threat to Lewis Hamilton being crowned Sports Personality of the Year, but he did put 50,000 bums on seats in the small hours in Cardiff last Saturday night.

My ticket, which thankfully I didn't pay for, had £300 written on it. With no expensive freight to pay for and just a few undercard fighters to square away, I started to think that Bernie is missing a trick. Calzaghe's even got a Dad called Enzo!

Nobody, I'm sure, will stop a Hamilton landslide in this year's Sports Personality poll despite a potential 11th hour stumble due to change of abode. Which is just as it should be. Who cares where he lives?