TV show sold to 120 countries.. but the band got just pounds 52k each

CHART-topping S Club have called in lawyers to find out if they've got a fair share of the multi-million-euro fortune the band made.

Experts are combing through a mountain of legal contracts and accounts to establish why the band members - who announced their split this week - have made so little.

Some of the remaining members have been forced to spend up to the equivalent of EUR60,000 on legal fees chasing money from their bosses at 19 Management.

S Club 7 broke records and rode high in the charts after pop Svengali Simon Fuller formed the band at the end of 1998.

The 43-year-old plucked the seven original members - Bradley McIntosh, Paul Cattermole, Jon Lee, Jo O'Meara, Rachel Stevens, Tina Barratt and Hannah Spearritt - from 10,000 hopefuls. Cattermole left last year.

Despite their international success - including four number one singles and album sales of 12 million - which are set to generate a EUR75 million fortune for Fuller, the band have taken home around EUR150,000 a year since they've been together

Now some of their parents believe that Fuller has taken advantage of the youngsters naivety and ambition by tying them up in tight legal contracts.

S Club brought in millions through lucrative sponsorship deals with firms like Pepsi, Hasbro and BT Broadband. They have also made a movie and had their own TV series which was sold across the world.

Last night Hannah Spearritt's father Michael said: "It's outrageous that these children have been phenomenally successfull yet earned so little. It looks like there is only one place this will end - and that is in the courts."

Now the Irish Sunday Mirror can reveal how:

-The group members only made EUR52,000 each from their TV show Miami 7 despite it being sold to more than 120 countries.

-Out of a EUR2.5 million deal with BT Broadband Fuller's company took EUR2.1 million, and the group were paid just EUR60,000 each plus a free phone. Fuller said his share would be used to start the Sunday morning TV show Popworld - which would be a platform for S Club. But a source close to the group said the show now has virtually nothing to do with the band.

-At a heated meeting between Fuller, the group and their parents he told them: "I could put cardboard cut-outs of you on the stage and it wouldn't make any difference.""

Last night music industry experts described the vast discrepancy in earnings between manager and group as "extraordinary". Paul March, of London-based lawyers Clintons, said: "It is extraordinary to have a commercial contract where the management is out-earning the band to this ratio. It's difficult to justify something that is so inequitable.""

Hannah's parents have hired lawyers to chase payments and have also employed an independent auditor to examine all six of the complex legal contracts the youngsters signed.

Her father Michael said: "Every parent of a young kid who wants to be famous should learn from what's happened to S Club. They have been hugely successful and have worked so hard but have little to show for it."

He added: "Simon Fuller should be ashamed of himself for taking advantage of these youngsters. I am certain that he has not done anything illegal but it just seems so unfair."

Mr Spearritt revealed that his daughter still technically owed "tens of thousands of pounds" to S Club's record company, Polydor, while having to chase payments owed to her by 19 Management.

"When we do get payments through, it's normally been after chasing them," he said. "We were told that royalties would come through after three months, but we were lucky if it was after six months. Normally it took nine months."

S Club's movie, Seeing Double, was launched last week. But Fuller, who was yesterday celebrating becoming the first Briton to simultaneously score a number one album, single and TV show in the US with the American version of Pop Idol and its spin-offs, didn't even attend the premiere. A source close to the group said: "That really hurt them. They had worked so hard on the film. It's as if he has made his money from them and has got his fingers in bigger pies now."

The group and their worried parents had already held three crunch meetings with Fuller to try to sort out their differences. A source who was at the meeting said: "Fuller always had an answer for everything. They had being trying to get a better deal but it was incredibly difficult."

The source told how the relationship between S Club and Fuller reached such a low that he stormed out of one of the meetings in tears.

"It had begun perfectly amicably," the source said. "But when they brought up the subject of money and the release of their single, You, which they didn't want to release, he put his foot down. He said, 'What do you know about this bloody business? I know it, you don't. I could put cardboard cut-outs of you on the stage and it wouldn't make any difference'."

The source added: "I couldn't believe he could say that to them after they worked so hard and put so much into being a success. I thought some of the band were going to walk out there and then. He actually said to them, 'You can go now if you want'. Five minutes later he was crying and walked out of the room like a child who couldn't get his own way.