Premier League strikers don’t often turn up in motor insurance stories. Omar Marmoush has managed it, and nothing suggests he even had to turn a wheel.
The Tottenham forward, 27, has been found guilty at Teesside magistrates court after his McLaren 720S was found to be uninsured and not declared off the road. According to the Press Association, he was fined £220 and ordered to pay £100 in costs and an £88 victim surcharge. That comes to £408.
For a player whose loan from Manchester City reportedly obliges Spurs to pay £60m for him next summer, and whose car is valued at around £250,000, that is small change. The case still matters to the market, because it shows how the UK’s continuous insurance enforcement rules work and how easily even wealthy motorists can fall foul of them.
A paper offence with real teeth
The DVLA issued a fixed penalty on 17 June after its records showed the supercar had no insurance and no statutory off road notification (Sorn). The penalty went unpaid, so the agency went to court. Court papers show it tried to reach Marmoush at a former Manchester address. He did not respond and did not enter a plea, and the case was reportedly decided under the single justice procedure, where a magistrate rules on the papers without a hearing in open court.
The distinction matters. Driving without insurance is a separate offence. Since CIE came into force in June 2011, simply being the registered keeper of an uninsured vehicle has been an offence unless a Sorn is in place. The DVLA compares its records regularly with the Motor Insurance Database to find keepers without cover.
Under the government’s guidance, a keeper caught this way faces a £100 fine and the possibility of the vehicle being clamped, impounded or destroyed. If the case goes to court, the maximum fine is £1,000. Drivers caught behind the wheel uninsured face a stiffer penalty: a £300 fixed penalty and six points.
A supercar sitting uninsured in a garage is not, in itself, a danger to anyone. But the database checks that caught Marmoush are the same ones that underpin the wider fight against uninsured driving, and that fight costs insurers real money.
The Motor Insurers’ Bureau, which is funded by a levy on motor insurers, estimates that around 335,000 uninsured vehicles are on UK roads on any given day. It puts the cost to the country at £1bn a year and says someone becomes the victim of an uninsured or hit-and-run driver every 20 minutes. In 2024 alone, the bureau paid out more than £400m in compensation. Honest policyholders ultimately cover that bill through their premiums.
The more useful lesson for brokers concerns the circumstances. Marmoush moved from Manchester to London in a late-summer transfer, the post went to his old address, and a high-value car apparently sat uncovered in the meantime.
That pattern will be familiar to anyone handling private client motor business. Clients may own several vehicles and several homes, relocate at short notice for work, and leave paperwork to agents or staff. A policy can lapse during a move, a car can be left behind in a garage in the old city, and nobody notices until a penalty letter goes unanswered.
Specialist supercar and prestige motor propositions increasingly sell themselves on concierge-style service. Cases like this suggest that service should include basic checks: making sure every registered vehicle is either insured or Sorned, flagging renewals around house moves, and checking cover on the free askMID service.
Marmoush is hardly the first public figure caught out. Scotland’s then transport minister was found driving without proper insurance in 2017, which was followed by a police crackdown that detained more than 200 vehicles.
For Marmoush, who joined City from Eintracht Frankfurt in January 2025 and played for Egypt at this summer’s World Cup, the fine will barely register. For the insurance market, it is another reminder that CIE catches anyone whose cover has quietly lapsed.
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