Parallax · sports desk · — 29

Football's new cap is highest for the richest

You hear "cap" and picture one line for everybody. This one is 85% of what each club earns. Manchester City gets £590m, Bournemouth £155m.

£6.8bn in. £4.4bn out.

Matchday passed £1bn for the first time, and wages took £4.4bn of the £6.8bn.£m
Matchday Broadcast Commercial Football revenue Wages Everything elsethe clubs spendor keep 1,000 £m first time above £1bn 4,400 £m 65% of revenue 2,400 £m transfer fees and running the club 3,400 £m shared nearly equally 2,400 £m not shared between clubs

THE MONEY

The ceiling depends on revenue, so where does it come from? Three streams, and the league shares only one.

Broadcast money, shared nearly equally by the league, is 81.5% of Bournemouth's income and 40.2% of Manchester City's, whose biggest stream is commercial at 49.0%. Shares are of the three named streams.

How to read this — Each dot is one club. The closer it sits to a corner, the more of that club's money comes from that stream. The table below gives the exact shares, and pressing one picks it out.

Bournemouth — 4% Matchday, 82% Broadcast, 15% Commercial. Most lopsided: 82% down Broadcast.

Every entity, its three shares, and where it leans
Team Matchday Broadcast Commercial Leans
Manchester City 11% 40% 49% Commercial
Liverpool 17% 38% 46% Commercial
Arsenal 22% 40% 38% Broadcast
Manchester United 24% 26% 50% Commercial
Aston Villa 10% 65% 25% Broadcast
West Ham 17% 58% 25% Broadcast
Bournemouth 4% 82% 15% Broadcast

WHERE IT COMES FROM

So the smallest earner leans hardest on shared money. Now look at what wages alone take from each club.

Bournemouth spent 86.8% of revenue on wages. The league average was 65%.%
Premier League average, 2024/25 · 65
Bournemouth 86.8 Highest wage share. Smallest revenue.
West Ham 77.2
Aston Villa 72.2
Liverpool 60.9
Manchester City 58.8

WHAT WAGES TAKE

Wages are only part of a squad's cost, so add the transfer fees, spread over the contracts. Aston Villa already breaks UEFA's tighter 70% version, on The Swiss Ramble's reading.

Each club's wages plus player amortisation, as a share of its 2024/25 revenue, from the accounts. Squad cost as a share of revenue (wages plus player amortisation)

How to read this — The fitted line slopes down, so clubs that earn more spend a smaller share. Dots high on the left are already spending more than they earn. The buttons switch the axes.

71.24 85.6 99.95 114.31 128.66 140.32 291.41 442.5 593.59 744.68 LiverpoolManchester CityAston VillaWest Ham Revenue, 2024/25 (£m) Squad cost as a share of revenue (wages plus player amortisation) Smallest revenue. Highest ratio. Same rule.

THE DENOMINATOR

Those dots are already over the line, but the losses came from elsewhere. Aston Villa's £17m profit came from selling its women's team and property rights for £114m, not from football.

Wages went from 64% to 65% while losses rose sevenfold. The accountants Deloitte put much of the £812m rise down to decisions about selling players and club assets.
£948m
Pre-tax losses, 2024/25
Up from £135m the season before
65%
Wages as a share of revenue
It was 64% the season before
8
Clubs in operating profit
Thirteen managed it the year before
£6.8bn
Total revenue
A record, and up 8%

WHERE THE LOSSES CAME FROM

Wages were not the problem, yet the new rule targets wages plus transfer fees. Here is how it arrived.

2024
Clubs agree to explore a hard cap
21 Nov 2025
Squad Cost Ratio approved. The hard cap fails
The cap that would have narrowed the gap failed here.
8 Jul 2026
Deloitte counts £948m of losses
2026/27
The rule binds. PSR is gone

HOW IT PASSED

That's the short version.

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