Referees appeal dismissed and sent back to FTT

The long running dispute between HMRC and the Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) concerning the employment status of referees has been sent back to the First Tier Tribunal (FTT) to decide whether the individual match contracts between PGMOL and referees were contracts of employment.

The Supreme Court has just released its ruling, which has taken over 15 months from the date of the hearings in June 2023 and arose following PGMOL’s challenge to the Court of Appeal ruling in 2021 that found in favour of HMRC. 

The Supreme Court judges drawing on the conclusions set out within the three-limb test per Ready Mixed Concrete (South East) Ltd v Minister of Pensions and National Insurance [1968] (RMC) has dismissed PGMOL’s grounds of appeal, that there was insufficient mutuality of obligations between the business and the referees and that there was insufficient control over the referees for there to be a contract of employment in place.  

The judges concluded that the irreducible minimum of mutuality of obligation and control necessary for a contract of employment between PGMOL and the referees was satisfied in relation to the individual match contracts. This satisfies the first two limb test of RMC.

In the circumstances it was decided that the appropriate course of action was to refer the case back to the FTT to decide based on its original findings of fact and by applying the guidance as to the correct approach as set out by the Court of Appeal in Atholl House as to whether the individual match contracts were contracts of employment given that both the requirements of mutuality of obligation and control have been met.

This case which was first heard at the FTT in 2018 now requires a fifth hearing and is unlikely to be resolved any time soon.  Yet again this demonstrates the complexities that are in play when looking to establish the appropriate employment status position for tax and national insurance purposes.