League One SCMP
How much can Plymouth Argyle spend?
Under the EFL's Salary Cost Management Protocol (SCMP) rules, Plymouth Argyle have a
guaranteed spending limit of £14.4m
— 50% of estimated football revenue of £28.8m.
Against their estimated squad cost that leaves £7.6m of headroom.
Plymouth Argyle: the SCR breakdown
- Estimated revenue (football) reported £28.8m
- 50% SCR limit £14.4m
- Estimated squad cost estimated £6.8m
- Headroom vs 50% limit +£7.6m
High spending power
- squad cost is 23.5% of revenue
What this means
On these estimates, Plymouth Argyle 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 the filed 2024/25 accounts (Plymouth Argyle Football Club Limited, group accounts to 30 June 2025, filed at Companies House 23 Dec 2025) — a CHAMPIONSHIP season. Swiss Ramble: club-record turnover £28.8m (broadcasting £12.9m, matchday £5.9m, commercial £10.0m), wages £21.2m (73.6% of revenue), player trading profit £6.1m, pre-tax profit £0.3m. This is NOT a League One revenue base: 2025/26 accounts (first League One season) are not yet filed, and no official 2025/26 or 2026/27 turnover figure has been published. No parachute payments. Indicative scale of the drop: PASOTI accounts thread notes EFL distributions were ~£1.9m when Argyle were last in League One (vs £12.9m broadcasting in the Championship), implying roughly £9m less revenue; Plymouth Herald (25 Apr 2026 fans' forum, seen only via search snippet, page not fetched) reported CEO Paul Berne forecasting a £10.6m operating loss for 2025/26 and a 2026/27 'football budget' of around £10m, similar to 2025/26 and not dependent on selling Lorent Tolaj (since sold to Bristol City for £4m). A staff restructure/redundancy process was reported in March 2026 (footballleagueworld.co.uk). Wage bill: SalarySport's 2026/27 League One estimate of £130,025/week = £6,761,300/year (43 players) is used as the sourced figure; Capology's 2025/26 estimate was ~£9.4m (cited via unexpecteddelirium.substack.com, June 2026) and Capology's 2026/27 page could not be fetched (403), so the true player wage bill is plausibly £6.8m–£9.4m. Ratio 6,761,300 / 28,800,000 = 0.23 against the Championship revenue base; against a plausible League One turnover of ~£18–20m (unpublished, PLACEHOLDER-grade inference) the range would be ~0.34–0.52, i.e. at or near the 50% line if Capology's figure is right. Status set to within_but_watch on that basis rather than on the headline 0.23. Owner Simon Hallett's equity (and the £12.5m 2% shareholder loan facility for Foulston Park, per accounts) can count at 50p per £1 under SCMP. BASIS MISMATCH, RATIO NULLED (2026-09-03): the stored revenue is a CHAMPIONSHIP season and the stored wage bill is a 2026/27 LEAGUE ONE squad estimate. Dividing one by the other produced a 0.23 ratio that read as comfortable compliance while being arithmetically meaningless, so scmp_ratio_estimated and scmp_status are now null rather than shown. Both figures are kept because each is the best sourced number for its own basis, but they are not comparable. The earlier PLACEHOLDER-grade inference of a ~£18-20m League One turnover, which would put the ratio near the 50% line, is context only and is deliberately not stored. Restore a ratio when the 2025/26 League One accounts file and give a same-basis denominator.
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Compare Plymouth 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.
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