New figures showed that U.K. tax authority HMRC is investigating 171 professional footballers and 44 league clubs, "nearly double the number it probed last year," according to Sam Meadows of the London TELEGRAPH. HMRC has "stepped up its efforts to crack down on tax avoidance" in football since it established the Football Compliance Project in April '17 and has collected an additional £332M in revenue since '15-16. The figures, obtained by tax adviser UHY Hacker Young under the Freedom of Information Act, revealed that as of June, the number of footballers under investigation had grown by 90% in a year. Thirty-one football agents are "also being investigated." HMRC said that it "could not name individuals or clubs being investigated." Nick Hall of UHY Hacker Young said, "HMRC sees the football industry as another potential cash cow and is coming down hard on players and clubs." The firm said that much of the suspect activity is "likely to relate to" players' image rights. A spokesperson for HMRC said, "We carefully scrutinize the individual arrangements between football clubs and their players to make sure the right tax is being paid in the U.K." (TELEGRAPH, 10/23).
