EXCLUSIVE: Secret tax deal for football millionaires - the cosy deals with taxman that save stars millions

By Paul Bentley And Katherine Faulkner For The Daily Mail 22:44 GMT 30 Sep 2016, updated 01:26 GMT 01 Oct 2016

The taxman has struck a secret deal with Premier League football clubs which allows them and their superstar players to reduce their tax bills.

The exact amount by which the clubs have reduced their tax bills under the deal is not known, but latest figures suggest six of the top Premier League clubs and their players could be avoiding up to £88million per year under the set-up.

Richard Murphy, a chartered accountant and director of Tax Research UK, said it was ‘undoubtedly special treatment for high-earning footballers’.

There have also been allegations of bribery and corruption among other senior football officials.

The new revelations will also lead to fury over HMRC’s apparent willingness to grant ‘sweetheart deals’ for the richest individuals and businesses, while ordinary taxpayers are hounded for every penny they owe.

Daniel Geey, a specialist football lawyer and partner at Sheridans, said the taxman had struck the deal to try to curb the disproportionate amounts paid to players for their image rights between 1997 and 2010. In 1997 a tax tribunal had ruled that clubs could treat ‘image rights’ payments differently to wages.

Official sources insisted HMRC had had little choice but to allow the clubs to make use of image rights payments due to the decision of the 1997 tax tribunal.

‘Most professionals would consider that an entirely normal part of their job,’ Mr Muphy added. ‘It seems entirely artificial to say that this element of your earnings is somehow separate.’

Mrs Hodge said it was ‘nonsense’ to suggest that such a practice was for ‘any other reason than to avoid tax’.

The deal – agreed two years ago – was kept secret from the public. For the past five months, the Mail Investigations Unit has made repeated requests for details about it, under the Freedom of Information Act.

But HMRC insisted no information could be given on the confidential agreements it made with the clubs. Mrs Hodge said the fact the deal had been kept secret was another example of HMRC ‘hiding behind the veil of confidentiality’ instead of cracking down on unfairness.

According to figures produced by accountancy giant Deloitte, the big six clubs – Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur – paid wages of £1.08billion for the 2014/15 season.

However, under the deal negotiated by HMRC, it would receive just £43million if the players only paid corporation tax.

An HMRC spokesman said: ‘HMRC does not do deals. Image rights payments are always taxable.’

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