Spending permission
The percentages are the same for every club. The pounds start from the revenue a club already has.
What you are changing is a hypothetical denominator, not a club. The arithmetic follows Premier League Handbook 2026/27, Appendix 2, the Squad Cost Ratio rules. Where this page simplifies a test, it says so beside the result. It does not decide whether the competition is fair. It shows where the published lines fall once the revenues are what you say they are.
A squad-cost rule written as a percentage of revenue does not give every club the same permission to spend. It gives every club the same percentage of the revenue it already has.
Those revenues were not level when the percentage arrived. Some advantages — support, a stadium, a history of success — were already there before 1992. The breakaway then put the most valuable broadcast income under the control of the clubs in the top division, and left promotion and relegation in place. Later, an owner’s money changed some positions, where the accounts recorded that money for what it was. The essay separates those causes. It does not measure how many places each one moved.
This page takes the revenues as given and does the arithmetic. You can give every position the same revenue, or the same squad cost, and watch the landing change. Equal revenues make the green lines equal. Different revenues make them proportional. That is the mechanism. It is not a league table.
Position A and Position C use the essay’s hypothetical denominators, £150m and £600m. Position B is a middle figure, £250m, so the comparison is not only the two ends. Each squad cost is set at 85% of that revenue. None of these is a real club.
Every bar uses one axis, running from zero to just past the largest figure on the page. A longer bar is more pounds, not a judgement. The figures for each position are underneath.
| Position | Revenue | Squad cost | Ratio | Green | Red | Where it lands | Levy | Points | Next allowance |
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These buttons keep the Premier League rule and change only the figures. None of them is a proposal. Restore puts back whatever was on the page before the last one.
The green line is 85% of revenue for every position. The red line is 85% plus the allowance still left, which starts at 30 points and so at 115%. Unused room under the green line cannot be saved above that 30-point cap. Using the allowance spends it, in percentage points, for the next season.
Applied to one position, using the essay’s worked examples as the starting numbers. Nothing is added until you press the button. Cash and permission are not the same.
Squad cost divided by football revenue is the ratio (Rule A.1.10). The green threshold is 85% of that revenue (A.1.31). The red threshold is 85% plus the club error margin, which is at most 30 points and at least zero, so it begins at 115% (A.1.17, A.1.48, and H.2 for 2026/27).
At or under 85%, the next margin rises by 10 points, and not above 30 (A.1.44, D.2). Above 85%, the next margin falls by the overspend percentage, rounded to the nearest point, and not below zero (A.1.39). The levy, from 2027/28 only (H.2), is the amount spent over 85% multiplied by that rounded percentage (A.1.35 to A.1.37). A worked case in the essay: £135m of cost on £150m of revenue is a £7.5m overspend at 5 points, and a levy of £375,000.
Over the red line, the sporting sanction is six points plus one point for each £6.5m of overspend, rounded up (F.4). The essay’s case of £7m over the line is eight points. A second consecutive red-line season multiplies the points by 1.3, a third by 1.6, and each further consecutive season adds 0.3, the product rounded up (F.5). In 2026/27 the points can apply and the levy cannot.
Profit on disposals enters revenue as the total for this season and the two before it, divided by three (A.1.6(e), A.1.13). A £14m profit, with nothing else dropping out of that window, adds about £4.67m of revenue and about £3.97m of green room. A new registration is amortised over the contract, capped at five years (A.1.22). The essay’s £60m fee over five years is £12m a season. With £10m of wages and no agent fee, squad cost rises by £22m. Cash in the first year depends on when the fee is paid.
Sources: Premier League Handbook 2026/27, 31 July 2026, Appendix 2. UEFA’s 70% limit is Articles 93–94 of the Club Licensing and Financial Sustainability Regulations, effective 11 September 2025, as cited in the essay. The worked numbers that this page reproduces are in the essay’s appendix. The League’s own description of the system is its explainer. Where a simplification above could change a result, the page says which rule it has not run.
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