EMPLOYMENT STATUS OF PART-TIME FOOTBALL REFEREES

Supreme Court's recent decision in HMRC v Professional Game Match Officials Ltd. [2024] UKSC 29 provides important guidance on determining the employment status of referees engaged on short-term or casual contracts.The Court clarified key principles regarding mutuality of obligation and controltwo essential elements for establishing an employment relationship.While the judgment offers welcome clarity in some respects, it arguably fails to account fully for the unique context of sports officiating.The facts of the case were as follows: Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) is a not-for-profit company that provides referees for major football competitions in England.It engages two groups of referees: the Select Group, who are employed full-time, and the National Group, who officiate part-time alongside other employment.This case concerned the employment status of National Group referees for tax purposes in 2014-15 and 2015-16.National Group referees were appointed annually and required to pass fitness tests.Match appointments were offered via software, typically on the Monday before a weekend game.Referees could refuse appointments without penalty and could withdraw before arriving at the ground on match day.PGMOL could also make changes after appointments were accepted.PGMOL operated disciplinary procedures for breaches of match day protocols.It could suspend or remove referees from its list, but only the Football Association could cancel a referee's Level 1 registration (at [14], [15]).In circumstances where HMRC claimed that contracts of employment were created and hence match fees were subject to the PAYE scheme and that the referees were "employed earners" for National Insurance purposes, litigation ensued.The First Tier Tribunal (FTT) held that while there were both overarching seasonal contracts and individual match contracts between PGMOL and the referees, neither constituted employment contracts (at [18]).For the individual contracts, it found insufficient mutuality of obligation due to the parties' rights to cancel before the referee arrived at the ground and insufficient control by PGMOL over referees during matches (at [18]).The Upper Tribunal (UT) [2020] UKUT 147 upheld the FTT's decision on mutuality of obligation but found errors in its approach to control (at [19]).The Court of Appeal [