FA facing wages protest

Children will today deliver a sack of 500 letters to the Football Association in an effort to shame it into paying all workers at Wembley the real Living Wage. Following the collapse of the sale of Wembley to Shahid Khan, campaigners will reapply pressure on the FA to become an accredited Living Wage Employer.

Civil-society alliance Citizens UK has teamed up with pupils from local school Ark Academy, who have written to FA chairman Greg Clarke urging him to increase the wage paid to around 2,000 people who work at Wembley on match days.

Today’s action takes place during Living Wage Week, the start of which saw the independently calculated hourly rate rise to £10.55 in London and £9 elsewhere.

It also comes more than a year after The Daily Telegraph revealed hundreds of cleaners, catering staff and security guards were paid less than the London rate, and seven months after workers and campaigners wrote to then sports minister Tracey Crouch and Dawn Butler, MP for Brent Central, urging them to lobby Clarke to stop the FA paying “poverty wages”.

Michael Pugh, community organiser at Citizens UK, said: “We’d like the FA, as well as all Premier League clubs, to commit to becoming an accredited Living Wage employer by the new year – it’s only fair given the wealth in football.”

Alastair Wanklyn, a teacher at Ark Academy, said: “Our students are asking Greg Clarke to play fair.”