Premier League clubs urged to pay staff living wage after spending £1.4bn on players over summer

‘People you employ are struggling to keep their heads above water financially,’ chairs of 16 clubs told after lavish transfer window. Alessio Perrone reports

Tottenham Hotspur’s brand new stadium cost in the region of £1bn, but the club has not committed to paying all its staff the London living wage (PA)

Premier League clubs have come under pressure for not paying their staff the living wage after spending some £1.41bn on player transfers this summer.

Many cleaners, kiosk and ticketing staff and caterers to VIP boxes can earn as low as £7.50 an hour, according to the charity Citizens UK – while their employers came close to setting a new record for summer transfer spending.

While clubs spent dozens of millions in players’ fees, “people you employ are struggling to keep their heads above water financially”, says Citizens UK’s petition to the chairs of 16 clubs who don’t pay the living wage.

“This is the second job that I have to provide for my family,” said a contract cleaner at Old Trafford in Manchester who wished to remain anonymous. “I get paid less than £8 per hour ... I struggle to put food on the table.”

A steward at Old Trafford who wished to remain anonymous said he also made less than £8.50 per hour – but that didn’t include the two-hour commute to and from Manchester.

“I work at a lot of different football grounds, and I can understand why some of the smaller clubs cannot pay the living wage,” he said. “But Manchester United is the richest club in the world.”

Only four clubs – Liverpool, Everton, West Ham and Chelsea – pay their staff the living wage of £9 per hour UK-wide and £10.55 per hour in London, according to the Living Wage Foundation.

But transfer fees totalled £1.41bn this summer in the Premier League according to Deloitte’s Sports Business Group – just shy of the record of £1.43bn in 2017. Chelsea faced a transfer ban this summer.

“This summer has seen over half of the Premier League clubs break their individual player transfer records,” said Dan Jones, a partner in the Sports Business Group at Deloitte.

Clubs spent an average of £71m each in the summer transfer window, with Arsenal (£155m), Manchester City (£150m), Manchester United (£145m) and Aston Villa (£125m) leading the pack. None of these four clubs has committed to paying their staff the living wage.

The Premier League is the world’s richest football league according to Deloitte, with clubs’ revenue surpassing £5bn collectively in 2018-19 – almost £2bn more than the closest competitor, the German Bundesliga.

Wage costs – largely for players and executives – make up for some £3bn.

“Of all our sporting giants, Premier League clubs can most afford to pay a real living wage,” said Labour MP Jo Stevens, a member of the Sports Select Committee.

“Club owners and CEOs have a clear choice to either pay a real living wage and win respect from the public, or risk looking heartless in the face of the day-to-day struggles of their workforce,” she added.

A spokesperson for Citizens UK said: “Premier League clubs are huge profit-making global brands, but football clubs are supposed to be all about community. It can’t be right that their pay policies leave workers struggling to stay afloat financially.”