The Guardian today has published my call for all Premier League Football Clubs to pay their staff the Living Wage.  We all know that Premier League footballers earn eye-watering wages.  It’s not right that the men and women who work in catering, stewarding and cleaning for Premier League clubs all too often earn barely enough to live on.

Here’s my full letter:

Football is the lifeblood of so many of our communities. Every weekend hundreds of thousands of families and friends go about their pre-match rituals, watch their teams play, and enjoy their post-match pints. Almost three-quarters of the UK population watched a Premier League game last season, with conversations about the latest star signing and their vast pay packet commonplace. A wage of over £100,000 a week for a player in a team challenging for Europe is now common, and when people talk about wages and football, it is all too often these sky-high footballers’ salaries that come to mind.

But what is not often talked about is how much the catering, cleaning and stewarding staff at Premier League clubs earn. Matches couldn’t take place without the hard work of these men and women, yet all too often they’re on poverty pay – taking almost 10 years to earn what a star player takes home in just a single week. Only five of the 20 Premier League clubs pay all their staff enough to live on and are accredited as living wage employers.