Sport Spread, the online spread bookies run by former Worldspreads and Marketspreads executives Brian O'Neill and Fergus Rice, isn't flavour of the month with some of its UK client base.

Internet forums are flooded with complaints from customers giving out that they can’t get the company to pay it cash from their accounts. Several threatened legal action and the divil an’ all unless they got paid.

The company is also strike-off listed after failing to file its accounts for the last two years. Rice, who along with O'Neill consented to a €1.7 million High Court judgment last year after admitting diverting some Marketspreads funds to their new venture before leaving, said the payment delays were because of problems with its payments provider.

He said the accounts would be filed next month, and that the company is “trading quite well”. He declined to comment on a High Court case filed against him last month by the taxman, as it is a “personal matter”. He and O’Neill are also disputing whether they really owe the Marketspreads cash.

A quiet Christmas planned, then, lads?