Could this be the ‘kick start’ to payroll giving the Premier League needs?
Howard Lake | 9 April 2020 | Blogs
If players gave 30% of wages almost £1 billion could be raised in the next 24 hours for the NHS or other good causes.
Over the weekend there has been a story swirling around over whether Premier League players should reduce their wages by 30%. This is in light of Matt Hancock MP’s comments and the Covid-19 situation, with millions of employees now being furloughed across UK businesses, both large and small.
So far the the Premier League has pushed back claiming this would cost the NHS £200 million in lost tax income. Here we look at whether this is the case. And if not, what difference 30% could make for good causes.
What difference could payroll giving make?
With 20 Premier League clubs currently each having 25 players per squad, we are talking about 500 players or employees.
If each player pledged 30% of their weekly salary (average earnings are approx £70,000 per week) that’s a £21,000 donation per player per week. If paid via payroll giving, this donation would increase to £38,180 per player, per week.
If all 500 players signed up collectively they would be raising £19,090,000 per week.
This would therefore raise £992,680,000 in the next 12 months. So almost £1 billion extra for good causes!
Initiatives like ‘Common Goal’ have made a difference to encourage a few players like Juan Mata to give 1% of wages to good causes, but still the idea of giving to charity via pay has not taken off in the Premier League clubs even though many do lots for good causes.
Getting football clubs on board with payroll giving
We have already tried, unsuccessfully, to get all the clubs on board with payroll giving, but so far only Everton have made progress. 18 months ago, we attended a joint meeting with the all the Premier League Community Managers to explain the potential of the scheme. Since then Everton took up the challenge and now have over 30% of their employees on board for Payroll Giving with an award winning promotional campaign. It has a been a cold silence from the other 19 clubs and the Premier League themselves, who still don’t offer the scheme to their own employees.
It would take each club five minutes to sign up to payroll giving. It’s one piece of paperwork and would take two minutes per player to sign up to the scheme and choose their chosen charity to benefit. So in a day £1 billion for good causes could be raised.
Whilst many players are very charitable I am only aware of two Premier League players who currently give from their pay. We are not asking players to give again but to give in the most tax-effective way to benefit their chosen charities the most. If they don’t know who to give to why not sign up to the National Emergencies Trust or an NHS Foundation in this unprecedented time?’
The Premier League were not available for comment.
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#PlayersTogether
9th April update. Last night 150 players launched #PlayersTogether to raise monies for the NHS.
We applaud this move by the players and now challenge Matt Hancock MP to launch #MPsTogether and get MPs giving from pay to the NHS also so they lead the country by example.
Peter O’Hara is MD of Geared for Giving.
For more about information on Everton in the Community’s Payroll Giving scheme to contact Fundraising Manager Carena Duffy.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.