Premier League Players And Clubs Under Investigation Over Suspected Tax Avoidance

Over 300 professional players are under investigation from HMRC over potential tax avoidance, and one Premier League club are being looked into over offshore payments to agents.

There are Premier League players amongst 329 footballers being looked into over potential tax avoidance, by Revenue and Customs, according to the Sun.

The paper reports that it's the most in the history of the investigations, and the figure from the most recent season is up from 91 a year before.

HMRC are working alongside the FA’s Football Compliance Project as part of the investigation, with issues linked to image rights deals, similar to issues faced by Neymar and Lionel Messi in recent years for Barcelona.

Tax expert Elliott Buss told the newspaper, "The Football Compliance Project linking up with HMRC’s elite fraud unit means the tax authority is very concerned about the significant amounts of unpaid tax in the sport.

"HMRC sees football as an industry where millions of pounds in tax can very easily go unpaid. It is determined not to let that happen."

Image: Alamy

One Premier League club are also being investigated for using foreign 'sister clubs' in order to 'disguise' payments used for signing players to their English club, according to the report.

Up to 16 deals are being looked at after other agents learned about the practice of agencies being paid from European satellite teams.

The club's practice is said to have been used to help get around FFP, by keeping down their costs and the agent tax bill that they'd have to pay.