HMRC investigations of footballers have almost trebled from 87 to 246 in just the last year as the taxman targets image rights deals that it believes are being used to avoid tax, new research from UHY Hacker Young has shown.

HMRC is targeting what it sees as over-aggressive use of image rights deals, in which players are paid additional money on top of their salary for use of their image by the team in advertising and endorsements.

This money is commonly paid to a company...