UK: Employment status – Supreme Court Decision

Authors: Corinna Harris and Stephen Miller 

Part-time football referees were engaged by PGMOL on annual overarching contracts. They could accept or decline match appointments – when they accepted an appointment, this gave rise to an individual contract for a particular match. The referees were required to undertake training provided by PGMOL and were subject to their disciplinary procedures.

Both the First-tier Tribunal and the Upper Tribunal (Tax) found that there was insufficient mutuality of obligation for the contracts to be contracts of employment. However, the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court disagreed.

The Supreme Court concluded that the individual match day contracts created the required mutuality of obligations, and PGMOL had the required level of control over the referees.

The Court found that a referee and PGMOL were under mutual contractual obligations from the time the referee accepted the match appointment and while that match day contract was in place. It held that the combination of contractual obligations imposed on referees as to their conduct generally during an engagement and as to their conduct during a match was capable of giving PGMOL a sufficient ‘framework of control’ to meet the control test for employment purposes.

Key Action Points for Human Resources and In-House Counsel

The First-tier Tax Tribunal will now determine whether, taking into account all relevant considerations, the referees’ contracts were consistent with contracts of employment.

The government’s employment reforms (see above) include plans to move from the current three categories of employment status (employees, workers and self-employed) to a simpler two category framework, whereby individuals are classified as either ‘workers’ or ‘genuinely self-employed’ for the purpose of workplace rights and protections.

Professional Game Match Officials Ltd  v Commissioners for HMRC