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In a tax law ruling, the First-tier Tribunal has confirmed that football referees engaged by Professional Game Match Officials Ltd (PGMOL) were self-employed independent contractors when refereeing matches — not employees — dealing a significant blow to HMRC's long-running attempt to recover 584,000 in unpaid employment taxes.

The case concerned whether match fees paid by PGMOL constituted earnings from employment for income tax and National Insurance purposes. PGMOL’s protracted dispute against HMRC began in the First-tier Tribunal in 2018, and made its way through every stage of the appellate courts until the Supreme Court heard the case in 2024. Having found against PGMOL, the Court remitted the case to the First-tier Tribunal to decide the employment status of National Group referees.

What did the Supreme Court ask the tribunal to determine?

The Supreme Court found that there was an "irreducible minimum" of mutuality of obligation between PGMOL and the referees they engaged, and that there was a sufficient “framework of control” in place. This satisfied the first two of the three tests established in Ready Mixed Concrete (South East) Ltd v Minister of Pensions and National Insurance [1968] 2 QB 497, which point towards the existence of an employment relationship.

However, the Supreme Court asked the tribunal to determine whether employee status actually existed by carrying out the third test: in the light of all relevant circumstances, were the referees engaged...

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