Premier League clubs have agreed in principle to introduce a strict spending cap as part of the “squad cost” rules that come into force at the start of the 2025/26 season.
The measure was discussed at a Premier League shareholders meeting at London’s Churchill Hotel on Monday and will now be voted on at the league’s annual general meeting in June.
As revealed by The athlete Last week, the de facto salary cap will set a club’s maximum allowable spending at a multiple of what the lowest-earning team receives through the Premier League’s centralized broadcast and advertising deals.
The concept was first floated last year at a multiple of 4.5, but after several clubs strongly opposed the idea, a multiple of five is expected to be implemented.
The introduction of the 2025-2026 squad cost rule was unanimously approved at a Premier League shareholders meeting earlier this month and is expected to be finalized during the annual general meeting in June.
The spending cap is intended to serve as a backstop to the squad cost rule, which stipulates that clubs’ spending is tied to a percentage of their income.
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What will it look like?
If anchoring had been in place last season, the cap would have been £518m, five times the £103.6m that Southampton, which finished 20th, earned in centralized revenue, with Chelsea earning more on salaries, amortized transfer fees and payments to agents, with Manchester City not far behind.
Unsurprisingly, the idea is far more popular with clubs further down the revenue table. They see it as a way to stop the league’s biggest earners from continually overspending. Without them, they fear that the league’s already fragile competitive balance would be further compromised.
The move could be seen as a boost for other leagues looking to close the gap with the Premier League, although rivals such as La Liga in Spain already operate their own bespoke spending cap system.
However, this model is the first model that links the expenses of one club to the income of another club, while other variants of Financial Fair Play (FFP) are based on a club’s own income.
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(Michael Regan/Getty Images)
