Why football fans should lobby their clubs on the living wage When Man Utd can spend £25m a year on a single player but cleaners at the club only earn £7.80 an hour something is fundamentally wrong

When Citizens UK, a charity which organises communities to act for social justice, released their latest report on the lack of Living Wage implementation in the Premier League, they quoted an anonymous cleaner who carries out work at Old Trafford and earns £7.80 an hour.

Alexis Sanchez, signed in January last year and currently negotiating a loan away from the club, is reported to earn £25million a year, which works out at £2,384 an hour, every hour. In fairness to Sanchez, he does lead the cleaner 1-0 on league goals scored since the beginning of last season. But they are level on minutes played in 2019-20.

Currently, only four Premier League clubs are accredited with the Living Wage Foundation – Liverpool, Chelsea, Everton and West Ham. Those four clubs have formally committed to paying staff and third-party contractors at least £9 an hour, rising to £10.55 an hour for the two London clubs. Tottenham have committed to pay all staff the Living Wage although they are not accredited by the LWF.

The Living Wage is not a vague concept of fairness, but an ever-changing calculation based on the cost of living in the UK. The Government’s national living wage, set at £8.21 for those aged 25 and older, is not calculated to reflect what employees and their families need to live. So far, 5,000 UK employers are accredited to go above and beyond that level, including more than a third of the FTSE 100.

Those who need it most

When asked for comment, Manchester United confirmed that staff salaries do indeed differ depending on their remit, but that all permanent and temporary employees, whether engaged on a full or part-time basis, are paid the Living Wage in line with a voluntary Premier League agreement.

Premier League clubs have indeed previously committed to paying permanent staff the living wage. But that does not necessarily extend to third-party staff – including cleaners, matchday workers and security staff. Given that these are typically the lowest-paid employees within the club’s operation, it is they who so need the increase.

Clubs have come under intense political pressure to commit. Former Labour MP Frank Field, who initially campaigned for its introduction, formed a group of MPs who wrote to clubs within their constituencies to plead for their understanding. London Mayor Sadiq Khan revealed in July 2018 that he had written to London clubs to remind them of his expectations on the matter. But uptake has been slow.

It’s impossible not to place such sluggishness alongside the wanton spending within the Premier League’s transfer culture. At the last count, the combined revenue of Premier League clubs was £4.2bn and an estimate of summer spending on transfers was around £1.3bn. The latest Deloitte Football Money League revealed that wage bills rose by 15 per cent, year on year, to £2.9bn in 2017-18.

Why change is important

It would not take much for football to make good, and if other companies can commit then so can they. Of the 16 clubs who are yet to be accredited by the Living Wage Foundation, two are London-based. Those clubs would have to commit to pay all staff £2.34 more per hour, while the 14 clubs outside London would have to raise wages by 79p per hour to meet the minimum requirements. Even if all of those clubs had 500 third-party staff on the Government’s national living wage, the total cost would be only £8,000 an hour for all 16 combined.

The obvious retort to such please is ‘Why should we?’ – the real Living Wage is a purely voluntary commitment and businesses can reasonably run on the tenet of profit maximisation. But even then, there is still an argument in favour on the grounds of corporate social responsibility. When Liverpool FC became the 4,500th organisation to be accredited, Living Wage Foundation director Tess Lanning poured praise on the club’s engagement: “The decision shows Liverpool FC’s commitment to the community and, most importantly, the matchday staff that help to deliver for the club and its fans.”

If a Premier League club is no longer the local institution it once was, it also has the chance – and funds – to enhance the society and environment in which it operates. If you want to be cynical about it instead, it’s a quick PR win.

Football clubs have no obligation to step into line, but why let obligation rule their behaviour? They could choose to lead the way, to act as a leader and a beacon. “If we can show one sector which has the money can do it, we can then challenge other sectors of British industry, for example finance and banking,” Field said in December 2018. “They could commit that everybody, right down the supply chain, will get the real living wage.”

Football supporters, who so easily become obsessed with the rollercoaster of football’s short-termism, should be lobbying on the issue. It might not directly affect them or their football experience, but the wellbeing of club staff matters. If Premier League clubs can ignore the lowest-paid employees, they can ignore you too.