Liverpool cult hero Ryan Babel makes emotional plea for bank not to repossess his house after account was closed
EX-LIVERPOOl star Ryan Babel has claimed he could lose his house in the city over issues with his mortgage.
The Dutch forward, 38, played for the current Premier League leaders between 2007 and 2011.
Babel featured 146 times for Liverpool, scoring 22 goals, before departing for spells in Germany, Spain, Turkey and the Netherlands.
The 38-year-old bought a house on Merseyside after moving to the club almost two decades ago.
In a lengthy thread on X, Babel told his 730,000 followers he bought the property for “roughly £1.25m.”
Babel went on to claim he had paid mortgage payments to the Royal Bank of Scotland for the past 16 years – but now fears he will lose the house.
He wrote: “I bought this beautiful old house in Liverpool back in 2007 when I moved to the city. Purchase price roughly £1.25m.
“I don’t remember all the details as I had the logistics taken care of by my agent but I remember a 90 per cent mortgage from the bank.
“Resulting in me only making a down payment of 10 per cent.
“Interest rates were so favourable that my monthly payments towards my loan were only £1,050.
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“For almost 16 years, the bank RBS has been deducting these payments from my bank (account).
“No headaches – never missed a payment.”
Babel claims the bank has since closed his account after he moved away from the UK to continue his career.
He continued: “Apparently – the bank’s policies started to change and the RBS decided that they didn’t want people to hold an account with them who don’t live in the country.
“RBS ended up sending physical letters to the house address in Liverpool letting me know that I have a certain amount of time to clear the funds in my account before they would close it.
“You can obviously guess – since I didn’t live in Liverpool anymore, I did not receive those letters.
“[This] resulted in my bank accounts being closed with a large sum of funds in them.”
Babel added he was told to visit a physical branch of RBS to sort the problem out last January.
But since he was living in Istanbul at the time, he was only able to attend a branch in person last April.
The winger continued: “I ended up being able to visit a local branch in April 2024 – and they explained what happened.
“However I had to file a ‘fund release form‘ for them to release the funds to a bank account of my choosing.
“Since I wasn’t able to hold a RBS account anymore.”
Babel claims he has since called RBS and the bank “can’t seem to find him” on their system.
The striker now worries he will lose the house, adding: “My arrears keep piling up I assume and it’s possibly just a matter of time before the bank will take my home from me.. saying I didn’t paid[sic] my mortage for months.”
“I can cover my arrears and [want to] continue with the payments.”
Babel, 38, announced his decision to retire last November.
He last played for Turkish club Eyupspor and finished his career with 69 caps for Holland.
RBS is currently engaging with Mr Babel in an attempt to rectify the issue, per GB News.
SunSport has approached RBS for comment.