Premier League bigwig Richard Scudamore scoffed at the idea that clubs should pay staff the living wage yesterday after the bumper increase in the TV deal.

With the league announcing on Tuesday that it agreed a £5 billion TV deal with Sky Sports, many people hoped that some of the money would be used to subsidise fans’ ticket prices and once again raised the issue of staff being paid the living wage.

Chelsea became the first Premier League club to rightfully pay staff £7.85 per hour, £9.15 per hour in London, with Luton Town, FC United of Manchester and Hearts all currently adopting the living wage.

But Scudamore said it was not the responsibility of the remaining 19 clubs to introduce the living wage, despite the fact that the average player earns £43,717 a week.

He said: “At the end of the day there’s a thing called the living wage but there’s also a minimum wage, and politicians do have the power to up that minimum wage. That’s entirely for the politicians to do, that’s not for us to do.”

Scudamore, who himself earns £900,000 and was handed a £3 million bonus for the last TV deal, added that: “he didn’t feel uncomfortable,” that some players earn “half-a-million pounds a week” while other members of staff earned below the living wage.

While Scudamore was trying to pass on the responsibility, of the Football Foundation board member Richard Carbon challenged the league to commit to 5 per cent of the new TV deal to grassroots football.

At the moment the league gives £18m but with Sky and BT Sport set to pay a staggering £10 per live game, Carbon feels that the previous figure is insulting.

He said: “This is a challenge to the 20 club owners and chairmen. Some of them have been alleged to have little interest in the England team and English football more broadly,

“Community funding from the Premier League has not kept pace with its increase in television income and I would challenge the chairmen to commit 5 per cent of their total receipts to grassroots football.

“The number of (artificial) 3G pitches we have in England is tiny compared with countries such as Germany and the same goes for the number of coaches when you compare us with Spain for example.

“They have the privilege of coming and being an owner of an English club and each should have to put back 5 per cent into the game. That level would keep it simple, and allow community funding to keep pace with increases in income.”

Five per cent of the 2016-19 UK television deal would work out at £86m a year, and if the overseas TV rights bring in another £3bn that would total £136m annually for grassroots football under Caborn’s proposal.