Collective nouns cause endless arguments: "The government are..." (seems to be preferred by the BBC), vs " The government is".
Fowler (Author of "Modern English Usage") had great fun with this; it's not just the variant of English in use, but the particular GOVERNMENT! The US Government is singular, whereas the UK Government are plural. (I might have that completely the wrong way round. I'll re-post this when I next have a copy of Fowler in front of me.)
In my view, seems to be a general British thing. I believe I may have ranted about this before.
UK: the government are, the team are, Nasa are, etc.
US: the government is, the team is, NASA is, etc.
'Government/team' is a collective, so singular; 'ministers/player' are plural. Simple, no?
Then again, what do I know? English isn't my first language and I learned it in a former colony.