Premier, the new rules: no salary cap

Clear defeat on the salary cap, an option that the Premier had been advocating for at least a year. And two new acronyms Scr (Squad Cost Ratio) and Ssr (Sustainability and System Resilience) that clubs will have to live with on a financial level starting from next season, 2026-27. It is the verdict of the assembly of the clubs of the English top flight, which gives the picture of a divided league given that the salary cap proposal was rejected with 12 votes against out of 20 (it would have however found strong opposition from the players’ union, which has always been against) and that the new SCR which has the greatest impact on the construction of the squad passed with the minimum number of votes required (14 out of 20) and only after very long negotiations in the hours preceding the vote.

penalized

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According to the Premier, the SCR should bring the English regulation closer to that of UEFA and favor those who want to invest to grow, but the reality is that it is a system that links the spending potential of each club to its income, effectively limiting small and medium-sized teams in their climb. It is no coincidence that the leaders of the “no” vote were Crystal Palace, Bournemouth, Fulham, Leeds and Brentford, clubs that were virtuous under the old system of rules (PSR, which set the maximum loss ceiling at 105 million pounds every three years) and in difficulty with the new one.

rose

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The SCR sets the spending ceiling for Premier League teams in each single season at 85% of the total revenue from football. That spending cap must include the salaries of first team players and the coach (but not the rest of the staff), agents’ commissions, capital losses and the cost of a new signing spread over his years of employment (for example, if a player is bought for 100 million and signs for 5 years, his impact on the spending cap is 20 million per season). The income from football, the one on which the spending cap is calculated, includes both what the clubs collect on their own (commercial agreements, ticket sales but also net revenues from events in owned stadiums such as concerts) and what they receive from the various leagues and competitions, be it TV rights fees or prizes deriving from tournaments. In other words: the less you earn, the less you can spend. And the small-middle class, the one that did not live according to the UEFA rule of 70% ceiling on expenses compared to revenues that the teams playing in the cups must respect (9 this season, including the traditional big ones) by definition earn less than the big ones. According to The Athletic’s estimates for 2025-26, Aston Villa, Nottingham Forest, Leeds, Fulham and Bournemouth would be above the 85% threshold and no team would exceed the 115% threshold. But the virtuosos, apart from Brighton, are all the greats. The Premier will establish together with the club before each season a revenue forecast and therefore a spending ceiling: the controls will arrive on March 1st, with sanctions in the following summer of a minimum of 6 points for anyone who exceeds the 115% spending ceiling.

agency

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While the SCR regulates team construction and the spending power of each club, the SSR monitors the accounts more generally, trying to understand in a three-part test whether a club has sufficient resources to manage short-term financial inconveniences but also its long-term sustainability. Unlike the Scr, any violations would turn into obligations for the club to present a financial plan to put its accounts in order. It is the only one of the Premier’s proposals that passed unanimously. On the others there was a clash: the defeat on the salary cap is heavy for the league, the approval of the Scr a half victory, decided with the vote of two big clubs initially against, but which penalizes a middle class that remains dissatisfied and only one vote away from being able to block large measures like this.