An employment tribunal has ruled that Middlesbrough had not been paying some of their staff less than the minimum wage, the club have announced.

Middlesbrough appealed against a decision made by Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs (HMRC) that the Sky Bet Championship club had been in breach of the national minimum wage limit.

Staff members had agreed to have payments deducted from their salaries by the club to spread the cost of season tickets, but HMRC claimed Boro had broken the law.

"The tribunal found that the deductions made at the request of the employees in order to spread the payments for season cards were permitted under the legislation," the club said in a statement.

Boro chairman Steve Gibson said: "I'm delighted that our appeal has been successful. We have maintained for two years that the position that HMRC had adopted was unreasonable and that it was not in the public interest to pursue this matter against the club.

"We reiterated this within the last month and invited them to withdraw the notice of underpayment in respect of the season cards but they refused. This left us with no alternative to bring the matter to tribunal.

"In my eyes this is a huge waste of public money. Not only is it the time and effort HMRC have spent on the investigation but also their legal costs and the court time which have been incurred."

Boro argued they had been helping their staff, who had requested the deductions themselves to spread the cost of their season tickets over several weeks.