League One SCMP
How much can Leicester City spend?
Under the EFL's Salary Cost Management Protocol (SCMP) rules, Leicester City have a
guaranteed spending limit of £93.3m
— 50% of estimated football revenue of £186.5m.
Against their estimated squad cost that leaves £56.9m of headroom.
Leicester City is a parachute-payment club. A large slice of this revenue is Premier League parachute money - and it falls away sharply once those payments end, which is exactly when SCR headroom can disappear. How parachute payments work →
Leicester City: the SCR breakdown
- Estimated revenue (football) reported £186.5m
- 50% SCR limit £93.3m
- Estimated squad cost estimated £36.4m
- Headroom vs 50% limit +£56.9m
High spending power
- squad cost is 19.5% of revenue
What this means
On these estimates, Leicester City sit comfortably inside the 85% Green Threshold. They have room to invest in the squad without straining the rules.
League One clubs are governed by SCMP, a wage-to-turnover cap, not SCR. The figures above run the club through the same calculator at the 50% SCMP threshold for comparability; the League One page shows the club's SCMP ratio and threshold directly.
Note on this club's figures. Revenue is headline turnover of £186.5m (rounded to £0.1m as published) from the last FILED accounts, year ended 30 June 2025 — a PREMIER LEAGUE season (broadcasting £117.4m, sponsorship £37.3m, gate £20.3m; loss before tax £71.1m; total staff costs £152.9m = 82.0% of turnover; profit on player sales only £7.3m). Confirmed by Swiss Ramble and theesk.org. The 2025/26 Championship accounts are NOT yet filed (Sky Sports puts that season's revenue at just over £100m) and Sky Sports projects League One revenue of roughly £60m for 2026/27, so the filed figure massively overstates the denominator the EFL will actually test against. Wage bill: the £36,391,940 annual / £699,845 weekly figure is Salary Sport's 2026/27 League One estimate across 70 listed players (top earners Soumaré £58k/wk, Choudhury £56k/wk, Skipp £49k/wk); it is a crowd-sourced estimate with visible data-quality problems (e.g. a long-retired Wes Morgan still listed), so treat as indicative only. Context: total staff costs were £152.9m in 2024/25 (wages & salaries line £133.2m); a foxesofleicester.com analysis earlier in 2026 identified only ~£25m of savings from departures (Lascelles, Ayew, Daka, Pereira, Winks, Fatawu, Vestergaard, Monga, loans, relegation clauses); Sky Sports reported the club needed 30–40% wage cuts from its Championship level. Summer 2026 departures include Fatawu (£20m to Ipswich), El Khannouss (£15.3m to Stuttgart), Daka, Begović, Lascelles; Russell Martin appointed manager 15 June 2026. Ratio 0.20 = 36,391,940 / 186,500,000 against filed PL-era revenue; on a ~£60m League One forecast the same wage bill is ~0.61, i.e. inside the 0.65 first-season threshold but with little room, hence 'within_but_watch'. If the true player wage bill is nearer £50–70m (plausible given the slow pace of cuts), the club would be at or over the 65% cap on forecast turnover. Parachute: relegated from the PL in 2024/25, so 2026/27 is parachute year 2 (~45% of entitlement, c.£10m lower than year 1) and the entitlement continues in League One — parachute_club true. HOWEVER, per Kieran Maguire the club borrowed against its remaining parachute payments from Macquarie in January 2026 (accounts show a £49.7m PL TV-rights facility at 8.3%; total Macquarie facilities £98.7m), so cash broadcast income in 2026/27 is reportedly only ~£2m; the accounting revenue is still recognised for SCMP purposes but the cash has been pre-spent. Regulatory history: six-point deduction (imposed Feb 2026, upheld on appeal 8 Apr 2026) for breaching the £83m P&S threshold by £20.8m over the three years to 2023/24, plus a finding of late account submission; £124m of owner loans converted to equity in 2024/25; contingent transfer add-on liabilities £33.7m; accumulated losses ~£375m. No 2026/27 EFL transfer embargo or SCMP business-plan restriction found in public reporting as of 2 Sept 2026, but the Fatawu/El Khannouss sales suggest the club is managing to a tight budget.
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Compare Leicester with another club
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Figures are illustrative estimates from published accounts, named analyst estimates and
public reporting, not official SCR submissions.
SCR uses adjusted football revenue, which differs from headline turnover. Last reviewed 2026-09-03.
Full rules explainer →