£580k Defeat for HMRC in PGMOL Referee Case

Over eight long years of tribunals and judgements it has now been determined that a group of 60 football referees, are not employees of PGMOL for tax purposes but are self-employed and their appeals stand.

The total Income Tax and NICs directly in dispute was £583,874.07 but the significance of this case extends far beyond the figures.

For employment tax practitioners, this decision requires careful reading, not because it overturns the established framework, but because of how it applies it.

How did we get here?

It’s worth taking a moment to just appreciate how long this has taken. The original FTT decision was released in August 2018 and found in PGMOL's favour on both mutuality of obligation and control.

HMRC appealed and in 2020, the Upper Tribunal upheld the FTT on mutuality but found an error in its approach to control. HMRC appealed again and in 2021, the Court of Appeal found errors on both mutuality and control, they allowed HMRC's appeal and remitted the case.

PGMOL then appealed to the Supreme Court. In 2024, the Supreme Court handed down its judgment. It upheld the Court of Appeal, determined that the irreducible minimum of mutuality and a sufficient framework of control were both clearly satisfied in relation to each individual match contract, and remitted the case to the FTT for a final time.

The FTT was to apply the established multifactorial approach under Ready Mixed Concrete and, based on the original factual findings alone, determine whether the individual match contracts were contracts of employment.

This exercise has now been completed, and it’s been concluded that these were not contracts of employment.

What were the key issues?

The case concerns PGMOL's National Group (NG) referees, Level 1 officials who officiate at professional football matches beneath the Select Group.

Unlike their Select Group counterparts, who are full-time employees of PGMOL, NG referees hold other employment and referee professionally alongside their day jobs.

HMRC's position was that the individual match appointments amounted to contracts of employment, meaning PAYE and Class 1 NICs should have been applied to match fees. PGMOL maintained they were contracts for services. Two things were not in dispute: the overarching season-long contract was not a contract of employment; and personal service was required.

The Supreme Court's intervention left the FTT to apply Stage Three of the Ready Mixed Concrete test, the multifactorial evaluative stage, in circumstances where Stages One (mutuality) and Two (control) were already resolved against PGMOL. That made the remitted hearing a genuinely unusual exercise: a holistic assessment with two of the three preliminary conditions already confirmed.

Why did PGMOL win?

The FTT was clear that this was not a finely balanced case. It described a cumulative picture pointing materially away from employment across four principal areas:

1. The nature of mutual obligations

Although the Supreme Court confirmed that the irreducible minimum of mutuality existed within each accepted engagement, the FTT found that the obligations were narrow, episodic and permeated by choice.

Referees could close off dates without reason, decline appointments offered via the match appointment system, and critically, withdraw from an accepted appointment up to the point of arrival at the ground, without breach of contract or any disciplinary consequence. PGMOL could equally cancel or change appointments.

The FTT placed particular weight on the withdrawal finding. In an employment relationship, walking away from an agreed shift without good reason would ordinarily carry consequences. Here it did not. The pattern of regular officiating across a 42-week season arose from personal motivation and ambition, not obligation. Regular participation does not convert voluntary availability into mutual commitment.

2. The nature and quality of control

The Supreme Court had found that PGMOL's assessment, coaching and disciplinary systems constituted significant levers of control. The Tribunal accepted that finding and gave it full weight. The question at Stage Three, however, was what kind of control it was.

The FTT concluded it was regulatory, developmental and gatekeeping in character, not managerial or supervisory. The Match Day Procedures, fitness protocols, coaching meetings and merit-based assessment system all operated primarily to set standards, preserve eligibility and influence future appointments.

They did not direct how referees performed their core officiating function during a match. On-field decisions were final. PGMOL had no right of real-time intervention. Discipline for misapplication of the Laws of the Game lay with the FA, not PGMOL.

Importantly, many of the obligations relied upon by HMRC derived from the FA's regulatory framework, which PGMOL administered but did not create. Regulatory compliance requirements enforced by an administrator are not the same as an employer exercising discretion over how work is performed.

3. Integration

NG referees were operationally embedded within PGMOL's systems, appointed through its platforms, attending its conferences, wearing its kit, subject to its assessment processes. But the FTT drew a careful distinction between operational involvement and organisational integration in the employment sense.

Referees derived their professional authority and status from the FA, not from PGMOL. Registration, classification and discipline for on-field conduct were FA matters. PGMOL's role was coordinative and administrative within a sector-wide regulatory framework. Referees did not participate in PGMOL's governance or commercial activities. The contrast with Select Group referees, full-time employees with materially different obligations of availability and commitment, was telling.

4. Economic reality

Refereeing did not pay the bills. NG referees held full-time jobs elsewhere. Their financial security was entirely independent of officiating income. There was no salary or retainer. Payment was confined to matches actually officiated.

The FTT accepted that referees bore no meaningful financial risk within individual engagements and had no opportunity for entrepreneurial profit. Those features can, in some cases, point towards employment. But their weight is context-dependent. Here, the absence of financial risk did not operate against a background of economic dependency. Referees were not economically subordinate to PGMOL. They could disengage without material financial consequence. The premise underlying HMRC's reliance on this factor, that the worker depends on the engager for income and cannot walk away, simply did not hold.

What should businesses take from this?

Three practical lessons stand out.

First, businesses should not assume that ticking the mutuality and control boxes determines the outcome.

The multifactorial test is genuinely holistic and demanding. Confirming that mutuality of obligation and control exist is the starting point, not the conclusion.

With over eight years of litigation, the final answer in PGMOL turned on whether the nature and quality of those elements, and the wider factual picture, were consistent with employment.

Second, the distinction between regulatory obligation and employer control matters enormously.

If behavioural requirements or standards flow from a governing body, professional regulator or sector-wide framework, and the engager is merely administering them, that is materially different from an employer exercising discretion. In regulated sectors, the provenance of obligations must be considered carefully in any status assessment.

Third, economic reality is still a significant test , but its weight depends on context. The absence of financial risk points strongly towards employment in most cases. It carries far less force where the activity is secondary, non-remunerative in substance, and economically peripheral to the worker's livelihood.

The question is not whether there is financial risk in the abstract; it is whether the economic structure of the relationship is consistent with subordination to an employer.

For businesses operating with a mixed workforce, particularly in sectors with regulatory frameworks that set standards for independent workers, the PGMOL decision is a reminder that the status question is always fact-specific and always requires the full picture. No single factor determines the outcome. The exercise is qualitative, not mechanical.

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We work with businesses across sectors on employment status reviews, HMRC enquiry support, and workforce structuring. If you have questions about how this decision affects your arrangements, please get in touch.

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