The HMRC has raided a number of premises in England as well as in France.

Two of English football’s most high-profile football clubs have been raided by the HMRC on suspected Income Tax and National Insurance fraud.

The premises of Newcastle United, Sports Direct Arena, and West Ham United, London Stadium, were entered by officials yesterday after HMRC, the UK tax authority, said in a statement it had searched premises in the Northeast and Southeast of England as well as in France.

French authorities assisted with the UK investigation, as 180 HMRC offices have been deployed across the UK and France. Rush Green, West Ham's training ground and Newcastle's Darsely Park training facility were also raided. According to the HMRC: “several men have been arrested working within the professional football industry” and investigators have “arrested the men and also seized business records, financial records, computers and mobiles phones”.

“This criminal investigation sends a clear message that, whoever you are, if you commit tax fraud you can expect to face the consequences. As this is an ongoing investigation HMRC is unable to provide any further detail at this time,” HMRC added.

Yesterday, a statement from the French authorities said: "April 26, 2017, a number of arrests and searches were carried out in France in connection with the execution by the national financial prosecutor (PNF) of a request on July 29, 2016, for mutual assistance from the British judicial authorities.Ten searches were carried out all over France and four people were held in custody. Documents were also seized.

"The investigation is being conducted by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC). It deals with cases of aggravated tax evasion and the laundering of aggravated tax fraud committed during several transfers of football players between French clubs and clubs playing in the Premier League. The UK authorities suspect hidden payments to certain players, their agents or third parties, allowing them to evade income taxes and social security contributions. This judicial operation to combat tax fraud, carried out jointly by the French and British authorities and supervised by two PNF magistrates, took several months to prepare and mobilised 32 investigators."

"HMRC has recently ‘discovered’ footballers as a soft target. Something that has also been recently demonstrated in the Rangers Supreme Court case and the enquiry into footballers’ image rights,” said tax expert Tom Wesel, partner at Milestone International Tax Consultants. “These raids could be a scare tactic, forcing the clubs to negotiate over arrangements that were entered into in good faith with professional advice. Or, the clubs may have been daft enough to engage in what was obviously fraud. We don’t know. Nor, perhaps, does HMRC yet.

“Powers to raid and seize documents have been hugely expanded in recent years in very worrying ways - it’s at risk of degenerating into a lawless envyfest."

Newcastle are yet to make an official statement but West Ham have said they are "co-operating fully with HMRC to assist their inquiries", subject to latest developments.

This is not the first time tax matters has been investigated in football. Rangers football club, based in Scotland, will go to the Supreme Court to find out whether a scheme called employee benefit trusts, which offered loans to players, broke the law. Rangers has had a checkered history over tax affairs. Rangers, which traded under the name of The Rangers Football Club plc, entered administration in February 2012, owing money to the tax authority which subsequently refused to allow Rangers to exit administration via a Company Voluntary Arrangement. The Rangers Football Club went into liquidation on 31 October 2012. The situation meant administrators had to sell the business and assets of Rangers to a new company, operated by Charles Green. The other member clubs of the Scottish Premier League refused to allow the new company to adopt the league membership of the old company. After securing the Scottish Football Association membership of the old company, Rangers (now trading as The Rangers Football Club Ltd) entered the Third Division in time for the 2012–13 season.

Barcelona star Lionel Messi was sentenced 21 months after being found guilty for tax fraud. But he did not have to serve time in jail because under the Spanish system, prison sentences of less than two years can be served under probation.

The football body of the world, FIFA, was also embroiled in a financial scandal in 2015, when US authorities investigated nine FIFA officials and five corporate executives for racketeering conspiracy and corruption. This lead to the former president Sepp Blatter, who had been assailed in the media and other outlets, resigning from his post.