On 1 May 2026, the First-tier Tribunal issued its long-awaited final ruling in Professional Game Match Officials Ltd v HMRC [2026] UKFTT 00654 (TC). After twelve years, three separate tribunal or court decisions in PGMOL’s favour, two in HMRC’s, and a Supreme Court remission, the FTT has found — again — that football referees officiating English Football League matches were self-employed, not employees. HMRC loses around £580,000 in unpaid PAYE and National Insurance contributions for the 2014/15 and 2015/16 tax years.
If you employ contractors, engage workers through service companies, run a gig-economy-adjacent model, or rely on flexible staffing in any form, this decision matters to you directly. Not because football referees are like your workers — they almost certainly aren’t. But because the legal framework the Tribunal used to reach its conclusion is the same framework HMRC will use when it reviews your workforce.
The Long Road to This Verdict
The PGMOL case has been running since 2018 and the contested arrangements go back to 2014. The core question was deceptively simple: were the referees engaged under contracts of employment (making PGMOL liable to operate PAYE and pay employer’s NIC), or contracts for services (making each referee responsible for their own tax affairs)?
The FTT found for PGMOL in 2018. The Upper Tribunal agreed in 2020. Then, in 2021, the Court of Appeal reversed both decisions, finding that the minimum threshold requirements for an employment relationship — mutuality of obligation and control — were met. The Supreme Court confirmed that analysis in HMRC v PGMOL [2024] UKSC 29, but crucially added something: satisfying those two threshold tests does not automatically mean the contracts were contracts of employment. It remitted the case back to the FTT for a full, multi-factorial assessment of the overall character of the relationship.
That remission is what gave rise to this May 2026 decision — and why HMRC still lost despite winning at the Supreme Court.
The Three-Stage RMC Framework
Employment status in UK tax law is determined using the test set out in Ready Mixed Concrete (South East) Ltd v Minister of Pensions and National Insurance [1968] 2 QB 497. Three stages must all be satisfied for an employment contract to exist:
- Stage 1 — Mutuality of Obligation: Is there an irreducible minimum of obligation — an obligation to offer work and an obligation to accept it?
- Stage 2 — Control: Does the engager exercise sufficient control over the manner in which the work is performed?
- Stage 3 — Holistic Assessment: Taking all the facts and circumstances together, is the relationship consistent with a contract of employment?
Stages 1 and 2 are threshold tests. Passing them gets you into the analysis — it does not deliver a verdict. Stage 3 is where the real work happens, and where HMRC failed.
Why HMRC Lost at Stage 3
The FTT’s Stage 3 analysis, as explained in detail in KPMG’s commentary on the decision, was a qualitative evaluation of the entire relationship — not a box-ticking exercise. The Tribunal was required to ask: what does the cumulative picture actually reveal about how these parties related to one another?
The FTT’s conclusions on the key factors were stark:
- Mutuality was episodic and choice-driven: Referees could decline appointments, block off dates, or withdraw from accepted matches — without disciplinary consequence. There was no ongoing obligation between matches.
- Control was regulatory, not managerial: PGMOL’s oversight framework existed to enforce Football Association rules and standards. It was not management in the employment sense. Referees retained autonomy on the pitch and in scheduling their availability.
- Economic dependency was absent: For the vast majority of referees, officiating was a serious hobby and secondary activity. They were not financially dependent on PGMOL.
- Integration was limited: The referees used PGMOL’s systems for the purpose of officiating matches. Beyond that, they were not integrated into the organisation in any meaningful employment sense.
The Tribunal was clear that its conclusion was “not finely balanced.” This was a decisive win for PGMOL — and a pointed loss for HMRC on a case it had pursued for nearly a decade. As the ICAEW has noted, HMRC is still considering its position on appeal — but given the judgment’s clarity, a further appeal looks unlikely.
The Wider Workforce Implications for CFOs
Here is what actually matters for corporate finance. The PGMOL decision reinforces — emphatically — that the question of employment status is never answered by a checklist. It demands a detailed, factual, contextual assessment of how the relationship operates in practice. VWV’s analysis makes the point clearly: the Supreme Court found the minimum thresholds of control and mutuality were met — and PGMOL still won. That tells you something important about how much weight Stage 3 carries.
For CFOs, the risk is not usually that you are exploiting workers. The risk is that you have an informal or ad-hoc contracting model — built over years for operational convenience — that has drifted into territory where HMRC could mount a credible argument that your contractors are actually employees. The commercial arrangement may be genuine. But if the facts, taken holistically, look like employment, you have an exposure.
The off-payroll working rules (IR35) — which shifted the compliance burden to medium and large private sector engagers from April 2021 — are the sharpest practical expression of this. Under those rules, it is you, as the client, who determines employment status via a Status Determination Statement. Get it wrong, and the liability follows.
HMRC’s Enforcement Appetite Has Not Diminished
Do not read PGMOL as evidence that HMRC has softened on employment status. It has not. HMRC’s compliance activity in this area remains intense, and the PGMOL case itself demonstrates that the department will litigate all the way to the Supreme Court — and back again — in pursuit of what it considers a legitimate tax liability.
HMRC’s Check Employment Status for Tax (CEST) tool remains the starting point for most organisations, but it is well documented that CEST is not comprehensive and does not always reach the correct answer. The PGMOL case involved facts that CEST would struggle to model — particularly the nuanced Stage 3 analysis around economic dependency and regulatory rather than managerial control. Reliance on CEST alone is not a defence.
As ICAEW’s Tax Technical Manager noted in response to the decision: even where a business makes a genuine attempt to interpret and apply the law correctly, HMRC may still disagree — and that disagreement can take years and significant legal cost to resolve.
A Note on PGMOL’s Own Employee Referees
One detail in the case that deserves attention: PGMOL itself acknowledged that a separate group of referees — those with different contractual arrangements — were employees. This is not a case where PGMOL was arguing that every referee in every sport context should be self-employed. The outcome turned entirely on the specific facts of the 2014-16 arrangements for the particular referees in question.
This matters for your own workforce review. The same job title does not guarantee the same status across different contract types. A business can legitimately have employed and self-employed individuals doing similar work, provided the underlying facts support different characterisations. Document that analysis. Keep it current.
The Government’s Employment Status Review: Still Outstanding
This decision lands against a backdrop of significant uncertainty about the long-term direction of employment status law in the UK. The government’s Make Work Pay agenda includes a commitment to consult on a potential single employment status — collapsing the current three-way distinction between employees, workers, and self-employed. That consultation was expected before the end of 2025. It has not materialised.
Until it does, you are operating under a framework that the PGMOL case has now exposed as genuinely complex even for the courts — let alone HMRC or a CFO trying to build a scalable workforce model. The ICAEW has been clear in calling on the government to tackle this as part of tax simplification. That call has not yet been answered.
CFO Action Points
- Audit your contractor population now. Identify any individuals who have been engaged for extended periods, have limited ability to substitute, are integrated into your operations, or are economically dependent on your organisation. These are your highest-risk positions.
- Document Stage 3 analysis, not just Stage 1 and 2. The PGMOL decision confirms that threshold tests are the beginning of the inquiry, not the end. Your Status Determination Statements need to reflect a genuine multi-factorial assessment.
- Don’t over-rely on CEST. Use it as a starting point, but for complex arrangements — particularly long-term, flexible, or specialist contractor relationships — get independent legal or tax advice.
- Review your off-payroll working process. Under the IR35 off-payroll rules, as the fee-payer you hold the liability if the status determination is wrong. Ensure the process for issuing and reviewing Status Determination Statements is documented and defensible.
- Watch for a government consultation on single employment status. If that consultation materialises and moves toward legislation, it will reshape the entire landscape. Build flexibility into your workforce model now.
- Consider the employment law dimension separately. Being self-employed for tax does not automatically mean self-employed for employment law purposes. Workers may have rights — to holiday pay, National Minimum Wage, whistleblowing protection — that sit outside the PAYE analysis.
Employment status is one of the most litigated areas in UK tax law precisely because it sits at the intersection of commercial reality, legal doctrine, and HMRC’s compliance priorities. The PGMOL case is a textbook reminder that the law in this area is genuinely hard — and that even a twelve-year fight doesn’t guarantee certainty.