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Premiership clubs should become ethical employers and pay fair wages to everyone working off the pitch

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14 August 2008

The Fair Pay Network and the Institute of Public Policy Research are calling on all premiership clubs to become ethical employers and pay fair wages to everyone working off the pitch.

The Barclays Premier League is the most lucrative football league in the world. The combined revenues of Premiership clubs stood at approximately £1.9 billion last season and the twenty clubs spent an astonishing £600 million on players. Revenues are set to rise dramatically owing to ticket price hikes and new broadcasting rights.

Despite this affluence, every single club - despite fortunes being paid at the top end - is condemning many of its workers off the pitch and away from the spotlight to a life of working poverty.

We have sent surveys to all club CEO’s as a means of auditing poverty pay rates and low paying supplier chains, and conducted months of research into low pay levels in the premiership, discovering that the problem is endemic.

We are calling on all clubs to move towards a “Hatrick Gold Standard” of living wages and associated conditions for the thousands of cleaners, shop assistants and hotel and catering workers who work so hard to make clubs financially successful.

We hope to hold joint talks with all clubs as soon as possible to discuss ways of moving this forward. The moral case for fair pay as a means to avoiding poverty is clear, and the business case, as proven by companies such as HSBC, Price Waterhouse Coopers and notably Premiership sponsors Barclays is very convincing.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

Anti Poverty authority the Joseph Rowntree Foundation say a single person in Britain needs to earn at least £13,400 a year before tax for a minimum standard of living and a couple with two children need to spend at least £370 a week. Very few service jobs in premier league clubs meet this standard, so we have a situation where an extremely wealthy sport has people servicing it who are living in working poverty.
In London, all of the five London clubs are regularly paying at least £2 per hour less than the London Living Wage – announced recently by Boris Johnson – of £7.45 an hour. Johnson said: “In London largely because of housing costs, you need an hourly rate of nearly 18% above the minimum wage to take you above the poverty level.”
In addition to all clubs advertising positions which pay the legal minimum £5.25 which we expect they will raise in October to the minimum wage level of £5.52, we have found evidence of:

A club not actually paying any set wage for 2 part-time shifts per week (in all seasons) selling lottery tickets door to door in streets surrounding the stadium. Pay was one match ticket per month and possible commission.
A club paying a £25 fee for 5 hours work as a steward on match days (technically illegal under national minimum wage legislation).
An English supplier chain for 3 premiership clubs paying an aggregated rate of £3 per hour for the production of official club merchandise.
Receptionists at a luxury hotel used by players in a one London club earning less than a living wage.
A club paying £15 for 4/5hours work as a programme seller with a possibility of commission after 50 are sold.
A club offering no wage for match day shifts selling club lottery tickets; a match ticket is offered as reward.
All clubs paying the lowest legal wage for cleaners, kitchen porters, kiosk cashiers, bar staff, conference and banqueting staff.

4.The Fair Pay Network is a 16 strong national coalition of anti-poverty charities, trade unions and NGO’s such as Oxfam, the National Union of Students, Child Poverty Action Group, TUC, etc.

Read more at the Fair Pay Network website.