HMRC’s spotlight is shining on professional sport, warning there are ‘fewer places to hide’

Buried in the documents released alongside the 2026 Autumn Budget was a new HMRC report, revealing that sports professionals, including football players and agents, will become even more of a focus for the Treasury. 

HMRC is expected to recruit a further 670 compliance officers by 2029/30, in addition to the 5,500 previously announced, and they have already stepped up compliance activity across sport, looking beyond football to motorsport, boxing and individual sports such as tennis and golf.

Why football is a focus for HMRC

Football specifically is seen as a major risk area for HMRC, and these announcements suggest scrutiny will intensify over the next few years and could extend to more players and divisions below the Premier League.

The new report sets out HMRC’s approach to modernising compliance for “wealthy taxpayers”, defined as those with income over £200,000 or assets over £2 million. This could put more of the UK’s top sports professionals under investigation.

The small print also shows that HMRC will collect information from open sources. It is already common practice to use news articles and press interviews against taxpayers when their words conflict with tax statements. However, high-profile people, such as footballers, face their social media channels increasingly being checked by HMRC, where careless posts or even words could well lead to misunderstandings or challenges.

Additionally, there will be more pooling of resources and collating additional information on this group of taxpayers to ensure greater tax compliance. In football, this is likely to mean bringing together those with knowledge of clubs and agents’ affairs, for example with those focused on individual players.

Given greater global tax transparency, we also expect HMRC to bring in information received from other jurisdictions on players’ affairs, resulting in much more involved, and potentially expensive, compliance checks for players and indeed other sportspeople.

Greater scrutiny must be carefully targeted

While the message from HMRC is clear: there are fewer places to hide, this approach brings risks for the tax authority itself. Given the financial and emotional toll of tax enquiries, HMRC must ensure the information collected, such as social media posts, is used in a targeted and carefully considered way.

Investment in HMRC compliance activity, and potentially a more targeted approach, is to be welcomed. However, the key is ensuring that the new officers are well-trained and that the information gathered is considered carefully and rigorously before opening potentially disruptive probes into high-profile taxpayers’ affairs.