HMRC has refused to name the premiership club caught not paying minimum wage (£6.31) to over 3000 of its workers. The reasoning behind this decision, quoted on BBC News, runs as follows; 'Asked why HMRC would not publish the names of the football club or recruitment company a spokesman said: "HMRC has strict rules about taxpayer confidentiality, so we would only name businesses in exceptional circumstances. In this particular instance, the decision was taken not to name the businesses specifically."'
So which club is it?
There's a list of all the clubs at page 3 of the citizens UK report- which is about their efforts to engage premier league clubs in discussions about the LIving Wage; and all in that list would appear to be claiming to pay the minimum wage- was one of them lying?;
http://www.citizensuk.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Citizens-UK-Report-on-Living-Wage-in-the-Premier-League-lowres.pdfHMRC are also refusing to name a recruitment firm who wrongly classified staff as unpaid interns to avoid paying them. For HMRC to partake in these cover ups is shameful but unsustainable. It is going to very hard to hide the identity of the club concerned when over 3000 staff are effected.
Comments
A BBC News report from 9 hours has some of the businesses that were named: How were these exceptional circumstances? Yet a football club can refuse to pay 3,000 members of it's staff correctly - and that's not exceptional?
It's not as if that was all that the football club was doing! You go further on and find out that the staff also had to pay for their uniforms: The mind boggles, it really really does.
Absolutely disgusting that a few small companies are mentioned but no big fish.
It's not as if that was all that the football club was doing! You go further on and find out that the staff also had to pay for their uniforms: The mind boggles, it really really does.
Arrears of £27,500 in total to 3,000 workers ? That's £10 each ?
Definitely more mileage in this story and for HMRC not to name the club in question, and possibly get their sums wrong will add to the controversy yet i suspect. The fact that all premier clubs pay a minimum wage to hundreds/ thousands of matchday staff yet tens of thousands a week to their players is inexcusable.
As for the club in the centre of this particular HMRC 'investigation' Swansea have form and they would be my guess-
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/aug/19/football-clubs-minimum-wage-hmrc
Arrears of £27,500 in total to 3,000 workers ? That's £10 each ?
Less than £10 each. I saw that actually and figured it must've been a mistake, as that makes no sense.
I expect uniform costs alone would be higher than that.
It was more the fact that individuals are being named - in the case of some of the examples, on the BBC website. Often when they've employed one or two members of staff.
Surely the scale of 3000 employees makes this exceptional? Furthermore, can you honestly see 3000 people keeping shtum about this? They may be gagged contractually (I guess this would be covered as confidential information relating to the finances and/or running of the company) but there's 3000 of them!
The best course of action would be the club coming clean and apologising. Not having HMRC cover their back.
I don't see how this can even occur, where does the buck stop with this kind of situation?
Recruiting agents (or internal HR) who were complicit in gaining the staff, and must've been aware of the salary?
Whoever wrote up their employment contracts and must've modified them to contain salary information?
Accountants who surely must've noticed discrepancies in the numbers and actually processed payroll?
The CEO or board of directors by default?
The fact that, in comparison to the other cases, there would've been several layers of management and paperwork would surely suggest the organisation as a whole was guilty on several layers - thereby making this exceptional.
Individual cases of employment in very small businesses could well be mistakes, you don't have to be a genius to run certain types of business and mess up your paperwork or numbers! However, this situation would surely suggest it being highlighted on at least one level and then ignored.
Furthermore, I doubt the turnover of the other businesses included the best part of £100,000,000 just for being in business (TV and other packages) and that other departments had 6 or 7 digit salaries.