Is Liverpool compliant with UEFA's squad cost rule?

On this site's estimates, Liverpool's squad cost is 61.4% of adjusted revenue of £739m. UEFA's squad cost rule caps that at 70%, which for Liverpool is £517.3m, leaving £63.9m of headroom. That puts them inside UEFA's limit. This is the club's domestic-basis squad cost estimate read against UEFA's lines; UEFA's own cost definition and calendar-year measurement period differ, so the figure UEFA calculates will not match exactly.

How does Liverpool's UEFA position differ from their Premier League SCR position?

The same 61.4% is measured against two different lines. The Premier League's Green Threshold is 85% (£628.2m for Liverpool), which leaves them inside it domestically. UEFA's limit is 70% (£517.3m), which leaves them inside it in Europe. Both regulators reach the same conclusion about this club, but they are still separate assessments. UEFA measures to the calendar year and the Premier League to the season, and the two count costs slightly differently.

What happens if Liverpool breach UEFA's squad cost rule?

UEFA sanctions a squad cost breach with fines, conditional or suspended fines, and restrictions on registering new players for its competitions - never points deductions, which are the Premier League's remedy alone. In June 2026 the CFCB fined Aston Villa EUR 22.5m (EUR 7.5m payable, EUR 15m suspended for three years) and restricted their registration of new players for the 2026/27 Champions League; Chelsea were fined EUR 3m. A UEFA penalty has no effect on Liverpool's Premier League position, and vice versa.

Liverpool · UEFA Champions League 2026/27

Liverpool under UEFA's squad cost rule

Because Liverpool are in the UEFA Champions League, they answer to two regulators at once. Their estimated squad cost is 61.4% of adjusted revenue of £739m. Against UEFA's 70% limit of £517.3m that leaves +£63.9m — UEFA: Within the 70% limit Against the Premier League's 85% Green Threshold of £628.2m it leaves +£174.7m — Premier League: High spending power

Liverpool: the figures behind both rules

Estimated revenue (football) reported £703m
+ Player trading profit/loss (3-yr average) +£36m
Latest single season was +£52m not used alone
= Adjusted revenue (SCR basis) £739m
85% SCR limit £628.2m
Estimated squad cost estimated £453.5m
Headroom vs 85% limit +£174.7m
Red Threshold (115% of adjusted revenue) £849.9m
Headroom vs Red Threshold +£396.4m

UEFA squad cost rule (UEFA Champions League) — a separate regulator's rule, running alongside the domestic one

UEFA limit (70% of adjusted revenue) £517.3m
Headroom vs UEFA limit +£63.9m

UEFA: High spending power

High spending power - squad cost is 61.4% of adjusted revenue

For reference, Transfermarkt's current squad market value is £842.4m (source) — a transfer-market valuation, not the same thing as squad cost. It's shown purely as a sanity-check on the scale of the composed wage/amortisation figure above, not as an input to the SCR calculation itself.

Premier League SCR vs UEFA squad cost rule, side by side

Both rules cap squad cost as a share of revenue, and both start from broadly the same family of costs. Everything else about them differs — who enforces them, over what period, and what happens when a club goes over.

Premier League SCR	UEFA squad cost rule
Regulator: the Premier League Assessed at the Accounts Confirmation Test	Regulator: UEFA's Club Financial Control Body (CFCB) Applies only while the club is in a UEFA competition
Green limit: 85% of adjusted revenue = £628.2m	Limit: 70% of relevant income = £517.3m
Upper limit: 115% Red Threshold = £849.9m Green threshold plus the club's own allowance, which ratchets	Upper limit: 100% A fixed line — UEFA's allowance does not ratchet with past breaches
Liverpool's figure: 61.4% High spending power	Liverpool's figure: 61.4% Within the 70% limit
Headroom: +£174.7m vs the 85% limit	Headroom: +£63.9m vs the 70% limit
Accounting period: the season Confirmed at the Accounts Confirmation Test after the accounts are filed	Accounting period: the calendar year The current period ends 31 December 2026; CFCB decisions expected late June 2027
Sanction: a levy in the 85%–115% band from 2027/28, then points deductions beyond the Red Threshold Six points plus one for every £6.5m over	Sanction: fines, suspended fines and squad-registration restrictions Never points — UEFA cannot touch a domestic league table

Why the two figures differ

The two rules are close cousins, not the same rule at two thresholds. The cost definition differs. UEFA counts all player and head-coach employee costs, amortisation and impairment of player registrations, and agent fees. The Premier League counts player and head-coach wages, amortisation and agents' fees. Same family of costs, but the two bodies draw the boundary in slightly different places.

The calendar differs. UEFA measures a calendar year and sets its costs against calendar-year "relevant income". The Premier League measures a season and sets squad cost against adjusted football revenue for that season. A club that sells in January lands the profit in a different measurement period under each rule.

The regulator differs, and so does the consequence. One body's pass is routinely the other's breach, and neither decision binds the other. Aston Villa's 2025 fine came from UEFA; the Premier League took no action over the same accounts.

An important caveat on the figures above. This site holds one squad-cost estimate per club and reads it against both sets of lines, which is why Liverpool's ratio shows as 61.4% in both columns. UEFA's actual cost definition and calendar-year measurement period differ from the Premier League's, so the number UEFA calculates for Liverpool will not be exactly this one. Treat the 61.4% as the club's domestic-basis figure held up against UEFA's threshold — a good guide to which side of the line they sit, not a reproduction of UEFA's own arithmetic.

What a breach would mean for Liverpool

On these estimates Liverpool clear both lines. They are inside UEFA's 70% limit with £63.9m to spare and inside the Premier League's 85% threshold with £174.7m. Nothing is owed to either regulator. The tighter of the two constraints is UEFA's, so it is the 70% line that would bite first if the wage bill grew.

Neither outcome affects the other. A club can settle with UEFA and still face the Accounts Confirmation Test, or pass the Premier League's test and still be fined in Nyon.

The 2025 and 2026 precedents

UEFA has now sanctioned squad cost breaches twice, and both rounds show the shape of the remedy: money and registration limits, structured to reward a club that brings the ratio down.

July 2025. The CFCB settled with a group of clubs over squad cost and football-earnings breaches. Aston Villa were fined €11m, with a further €15m conditional on compliance across a three-year settlement period — a UEFA sanction, not a Premier League one. Chelsea were fined €31m in total across football-earnings and squad-cost breaches, with up to €60m more conditional. Al Jazeera, Sports Illustrated.

30 June 2026. Ruling on calendar-2025, the CFCB fined Aston Villa €22.5m (£19.4m) — €7.5m payable and €15m suspended for three years, conditional on continuing to cut the ratio — and added a restriction on registering new players for the 2026/27 Champions League. Chelsea were fined €3m (€1m payable, €2m suspended). Newcastle United and Nottingham Forest were also fined. Sky Sports.

Note the direction of travel in both cases: a payable fine, a larger suspended one, and a squad-registration limit — never a points deduction. That is the whole of UEFA's toolkit here, and it is why a UEFA breach and a Premier League breach are not interchangeable risks.

Key dates

UEFA's limit fell from 80% for calendar 2024 to 70% from calendar 2025, where it now sits. The current measurement period — calendar 2026 — ends on 31 December 2026, and CFCB decisions on it are expected in late June 2027, matching the timing of the June 2026 round.

The Premier League runs to a different clock. Liverpool's SCR position is assessed per season at the Accounts Confirmation Test, once the club's accounts for that season are filed. A breach of the 85% Green Threshold there cuts the following season's allowance by the size of the breach, which lowers the Red Threshold the club is measured against next time.

So Liverpool face two assessments, several months apart, on overlapping but non-identical figures — and can be judged compliant by one body and in breach by the other on the same spending.

← Liverpool's full SCR page

UEFA's squad cost rule vs Premier League SCR, in full →

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The other Premier League clubs in Europe

Manchester City Arsenal Manchester United Aston Villa Brighton & Hove Albion Sunderland Crystal Palace AFC Bournemouth

Note on this club's figures. Figures are from Liverpool's FILED 2024/25 accounts (year ended 31 May 2025) — i.e. BEFORE the heavy summer 2025 spending on Wirtz (£100m), Isak, Ekitike, Kerkez and Frimpong, which will show up as amortisation from 2025/26 onward. matchdayfinance publish an estimated SCR of ~60% for Liverpool 2024/25, derived by assuming ~75% of total staff costs (£428m salaries/wages, excl. player amortisation of £117m) relate to football/playing staff; that implies player_wages ~£321m. Agents' fees are not separately disclosed so a residual estimate (~3.4% of player wages, consistent with typical PL disclosures) is used to square squad_cost to matchdayfinance's ~60% published ratio (£453.45m / adjusted revenue of £755m = 60.1%). revenue is reported (record £703m, club statutory accounts). player_trading_profit (£52m, mainly van den Berg and Carvalho sales to Brentford) is reported from the same accounts. Because the wage/amortisation split is an analyst estimate rather than a disclosed figure, squad_cost_confidence remains 'estimated'. Separately, a purpose-built tracker (bean-counter.co.uk) estimates a materially higher squad cost (~£545m, ~63% SCR) for 2026/27 once the 2025 signings and title-winning bonuses are reflected — the site should flag that the 2024/25 basis used here predates that spending and the ratio will rise materially once 2025/26 accounts are filed. 3-YEAR TRADING PROFIT / TRANSFERMARKT NOTE: 2023/24 profit on player sales (£22m) and 2022/23 figure (£34m) both sourced from The Swiss Ramble's 'Liverpool Finances 2023/24' article, which states profit from player sales fell £12m from £34m to £22m. Cross-checked against The Swiss Ramble's 'Liverpool Finances 2024/25' article, which independently confirms the £22m 2023/24 figure and gives 2024/25 as £53m (close to our stored £52m, likely rounding) — consistent year-over-year chain across both named-analyst sources. Transfermarkt total squad value is €979.50m as of Aug 2026, converted to GBP at an approximate rate of €1 = £0.86 (~£842.37m). This figure reflects Liverpool's 2025/26 squad including the summer 2025 signings (Wirtz, Isak, Kerkez, etc.), so it is NOT comparable to the stored squad_cost/revenue figures, which are drawn from 2024/25 accounts predating that spending — expected mismatch, provided purely as an external sanity-check value, not for use in SCR calculations. Summer 2026 window: spend £250.1m, sales £30.7m, net spend £219.4m (Sky Sports/GiveMeSport, transfer fees not accounting profit — the P&L profit on disposal is fee less remaining book value, so this is an upper bound on the player-trading profit that will land in FY2026/27). The stored player_trading_profit remains the filed figure and is NOT adjusted for this window.
Source.

Figures are illustrative estimates from published accounts, named analyst estimates and public reporting, not official SCR or UEFA submissions. Premier League squad cost is composed from wage, amortisation and agents' fee components or anchored to a published analyst estimate, because no club discloses the SCR split — which is why it is always flagged estimated. The same estimate is read against both the 85% and 70% lines; UEFA's own cost definition differs, so its calculated figure will not match exactly. Last reviewed 2026-09-03. Methodology →