Nottingham Forest winger Callum Hudson-Odoi has been convicted and fined by a UK court after failing to keep road tax current on his McLaren 765LT supercar — a vehicle with an asking price north of £400,000 — in a case that underscores how even the most straightforward administrative obligations can catch high-profile figures off guard.
The 25-year-old, one of the Premier League’s more recognisable attacking talents, was prosecuted by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) after the luxury sports car was found on a Manchester street without a valid vehicle licence — nine months after his tax had expired.
A £400,000 Car, A £660 Fine:
The facts of the case are as striking for their simplicity as for the sums involved. Court papers reveal that Hudson-Odoi became the registered keeper of the McLaren 765LT in February 2024. The vehicle’s annual road tax expired at the end of January 2025 — and was never renewed.
On the morning of October 29 last year, at 8:50am, the untaxed McLaren was spotted by DVLA officials on Southmill Street in Manchester. The agency subsequently offered Hudson-Odoi the opportunity to settle the matter out of court — an offer that went unanswered.
That silence proved costly. With no response forthcoming, the DVLA escalated to a criminal prosecution for the offence of keeping a vehicle without a valid vehicle licence. Hudson-Odoi did not enter a plea. On April 20, he was convicted at York Magistrates’ Court in a fast-track Single Justice Procedure — a private hearing designed to process uncontested cases efficiently.
Magistrate Karen Shackleton ordered him to pay a £660 fine, £410 in back tax, and £85 in costs, bringing his total liability to just over £1,100. For context, the McLaren 765LT — a track-focused, limited-production supercar built on the 720S platform — carries an asking price that can exceed £400,000. The unpaid tax bill, by comparison, is a rounding error. And yet it was the rounding error that ended up in court.
The conviction has landed at an already difficult moment for the Forest academy graduate. Just days before the court news broke, it was confirmed that Hudson-Odoi would miss the remainder of Nottingham Forest’s season after undergoing surgery for a leg injury — ruling him out of what has become a pivotal stretch of matches for the club.
FIFA Opens World Cup 2026 Media Accreditation: Ghana Gets 12 Slots
The winger, who moved to the City Ground from Chelsea in 2023, has contributed six goals in 43 appearances this season — a solid return from a player who has long promised more than circumstances have allowed him to deliver. A former England youth standout who earned three senior caps in 2019, Hudson-Odoi has spent much of his career at a crossroads between potential and consistency. His form at Forest had begun to suggest the scales were finally tipping in the right direction.
His absence arrives at a moment when Nottingham Forest need every available weapon. The club, who spent years fighting their way back to the top flight, remain in a precarious position — though they have shown enough resolve in recent weeks to drag themselves clear of the relegation zone after a nervy mid-season wobble.
More thrillingly, Forest are still alive in European competition. They hold a slender but precious 1-0 lead from the first leg of their Europa League semi-final against Aston Villa — a result that has the East Midlands dreaming of continental silverware for the first time in a generation.
Hudson-Odoi will watch those defining nights from the stands.
For now, the winger faces a quieter kind of reckoning — one measured not in league positions or cup runs, but in magistrates’ orders and overdue paperwork. The McLaren sits somewhere, presumably taxed. The lesson, one imagines, has been noted.