After more than ten years of litigation across five hearings, the First-tier Tribunal has ruled decisively in favour of Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL), confirming that Premier League football referees are self-employed — not employees. The ruling, promulgated on 1 May 2026, has significant implications for every business engaging contractors in the UK.
The Long Road to Resolution
This case has been through every level of the tax tribunal system. PGMOL first won at the First-tier Tribunal in 2018, and HMRC’s appeal to the Upper Tribunal failed in 2020. The Court of Appeal identified legal errors, PGMOL appealed to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court clarified the proper legal principles before remitting the case back to the First-tier Tribunal for fresh consideration.
The result? Judge Geraint Williams reached the same conclusion as Judge Sarah Falk did eight years earlier: the referees were self-employed. And crucially, he made clear this was not a finely balanced case.
Why This Matters Beyond Football
Although the PGMOL case concerns sole traders rather than limited company contractors, it applies the same case law as IR35 decisions. That makes it directly relevant to any firm engaging professional contractors — particularly those working on a shift or assignment basis.
As Dave Chaplin, CEO of IR35 Shield, noted on ContractorCalculator: the decision is “a tour de force on how to correctly apply the clarified principles laid down by the Supreme Court in 2024.” Despite HMRC’s attempts to argue strong mutuality and strong control, those arguments “roundly failed.”
Three Key Takeaways for Businesses
Mutuality of obligation is more than just payment for work. The tribunal found the engagements were episodic, with no obligation on PGMOL to offer work or on referees to accept it. Regular patterns of work do not create legal obligations — a point HMRC has struggled with across all five hearings.
Control is not a binary test. The tribunal rejected HMRC’s argument that a framework of control creates a presumption of employment — an argument already dismissed in Atholl House (2022). Regulatory or professional control carries far less weight than managerial control when assessing status.
Autonomy in performing the work is decisive. Referees had final authority on the pitch. Oversight came from the Football Association, not PGMOL. The tribunal concluded that control over how the work was performed did not sit with the engager.
HMRC’s CEST Tool Under Serious Pressure
The ruling raises uncomfortable questions about HMRC’s Check Employment Status for Tax (CEST) tool. Its underlying logic hasn’t been updated since November 2019, despite major legal developments in 2022 and 2024 that directly contradict HMRC’s historic interpretation of the law.
Chaplin is blunt: “Given how demonstrably misaligned with the law CEST now is, it should be temporarily withdrawn and sent back to the workshop.”
For any business relying on CEST to determine contractor status, that’s a warning worth heeding. CEST typically only returns an “outside IR35” result where there is no personal service or control — very low bars that most genuine contractor engagements will clear. When it attempts a full assessment, it either produces an indeterminate result or defaults to employment.
What Happens Next
HMRC has 56 days to decide whether to appeal and seek permission for a sixth hearing. With the tax under dispute at £583,874 — likely already less than HMRC’s accumulated legal costs — further appeals would be difficult to justify on proportionality grounds alone.
More importantly, HMRC’s guidance will now need updating to reflect how stage three of the Ready Mixed Concrete test should properly be applied. The days of single-factor determinations driving status decisions should be numbered.
The Bottom Line
If you engage contractors, this case reinforces what experienced advisers have been saying for years:
- You cannot rely on simple tests like control or personal service alone
- You must assess the full relationship in the round
- Regulatory frameworks do not automatically point to employment
- Lack of obligation between assignments is a strong indicator of self-employment
The PGMOL ruling is the first to explore how the Supreme Court’s clarified principles must be applied in practice. While First-tier Tribunal rulings don’t create binding precedent, this one will be a persuasive authority for years to come.
Sources: ContractorCalculator (Dave Chaplin), National Archives — UKFTT TC/2026/654
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