Sports organisation Sunderland Association Football Club (Sunderland AFC) has reported an 85.1% mean gender pay gap for fixed hourly pay.
The organisation has reported its gender pay gap data in line with the government’s gender pay gap reporting regulations and ahead of the private sector submission deadline of 4 April 2018.
The gender pay gap reporting regulations require organisations with 250 or more employees to publish the difference between both the mean and median hourly rate of pay for male and female full-time employees; the difference between both the mean bonus pay and median bonus pay for male and female employees; the proportions of male and female employees who were awarded bonus pay; and the proportions of male and female full-time employees in the lower, lower middle, upper middle and upper quartile pay bands.
Sunderland AFC’s median gender pay gap for fixed hourly pay is 15.8%.
Its mean gender pay gap for bonuses paid in the reporting period is 95.1%, and the median gender pay gap for bonus payments is 0%. Over this time, 48.8% of female employees received a bonus payment compared to 26.4% of male employees.
More than one in 10 (12.2%) of employees in the highest pay quartile at Sunderland AFC are female, compared to 30.3% in the second quartile, 26.8% in the third quartile and 29.1% in the lowest pay quartile.
Sunderland AFC attributes its gender pay gap to the fact that its highest-paid employees are male footballers. This also influences the organisation’s bonus gender pay gap, which includes footballers’ bonus payments.
The football club further cites that there are more male employees working across all pay quartiles because the majority of stewarding staff are men.
Martin Bain, chief executive officer at Sunderland AFC, said in the report: “The mean gender pay gap of 85.1% is a result of the highest-paid employees within the organisation being male footballers. The median average of 15.8% presents a lower pay gap, which is less affected by the higher margins.
“The mean gender bonus gap of 95.1% includes footballer bonus payments, however overall a significantly higher number of females, 48.8%, received a bonus payment.
“The quartile analysis shows the largest gap in the upper quartile, which is to be expected as footballer salaries are included. All quartiles show a higher percentage of males as the majority of stewarding employees are male.”
