Workers at Liverpool are not being paid the “real” Living Wage despite the club promising “all of its staff and workers” would receive it this season, a Daily Telegraph investigation has found.

The club last night admitted that not all adults who carry out work there would be paid an independently-calculated Living Wage of £8.75 per hour after the Telegraph uncovered jobs at Anfield being advertised for the statutory minimum of £7.38.

Liverpool said in November that their entire workforce would receive the Living Wage from June, with chief executive Peter Moore saying: “We hope that this development demonstrates how highly we value all of those who work for Liverpool Football Club in whatever capacity that may be.”

What they failed to disclose until Friday night, however, is that this pledge excluded workers employed through third-party contractors, who it has been claimed make up a substantial percentage of any club’s workforce. The refusal of all but two Premier League teams to ensure all such workers were paid the real Living Wage was branded “obscene” by campaigners last year following another Telegraph investigation into the scale of clubs’ reliance on cheap casual labour

But it was a further probe this week into teams who had either become or – as in Liverpool’s case – were seeking to become accredited Living Wage Employers that revealed workers at Anfield were still not receiving the figure.