Is Sunderland compliant with UEFA's squad cost rule?

On this site's estimates, Sunderland's squad cost is 73% of adjusted revenue of £220m. UEFA's squad cost rule caps that at 70%, which for Sunderland is £154m, leaving a shortfall of £6.6m. That puts them above 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 Sunderland's UEFA position differ from their Premier League SCR position?

The same 73% is measured against two different lines. The Premier League's Green Threshold is 85% (£187m for Sunderland), which leaves them inside it domestically. UEFA's limit is 70% (£154m), which leaves them above it in Europe. The two regulators therefore reach different conclusions about the same spending. UEFA measures to the calendar year and the Premier League to the season, and the two count costs slightly differently.

What happens if Sunderland 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 Sunderland's Premier League position, and vice versa.

Sunderland · UEFA Europa League 2026/27

Sunderland under UEFA's squad cost rule

Because Sunderland are in the UEFA Europa League, they answer to two regulators at once. Their estimated squad cost is 73% of adjusted revenue of £220m. Against UEFA's 70% limit of £154m that leaves −£6.6m — UEFA: Over the 70% limit Against the Premier League's 85% Green Threshold of £187m it leaves +£26.4m — Premier League: High spending power

Sunderland: the figures behind both rules

Estimated revenue (football) estimated £213m
+ Player trading profit/loss (3-yr average) +£7m
= Adjusted revenue (SCR basis) £220m
85% SCR limit £187m
Estimated squad cost estimated £160.6m
Headroom vs 85% limit +£26.4m
Red Threshold (115% of adjusted revenue) £253m
Headroom vs Red Threshold +£92.4m

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

UEFA limit (70% of adjusted revenue) £154m
Headroom vs UEFA limit −£6.6m

UEFA: Balanced

High spending power - squad cost is 73% of adjusted revenue

For reference, Transfermarkt's current squad market value is £337.2m (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 = £187m	Limit: 70% of relevant income = £154m
Upper limit: 115% Red Threshold = £253m 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
Sunderland's figure: 73% High spending power	Sunderland's figure: 73% Over the 70% limit
Headroom: +£26.4m vs the 85% limit	Headroom: −£6.6m 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 Sunderland's ratio shows as 73% 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 Sunderland will not be exactly this one. Treat the 73% 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 Sunderland

This is the common shape for a Premier League club in Europe: compliant at home, over the line in Europe. Sunderland sit inside the Premier League's 85% threshold with £26.4m of headroom, so the Premier League has nothing to act on. UEFA's 70% limit is £154m, which their estimated squad cost exceeds by £6.6m. The exposure is a CFCB fine — often part-payable and part-suspended against a commitment to cut the ratio — and potentially a restriction on registering new players for the UEFA Europa League. No points are at risk, because UEFA does not deduct them.

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. Sunderland'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 Sunderland 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.

← Sunderland's full SCR page

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

Every Premier League club's SCR position →

The other Premier League clubs in Europe

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Note on this club's figures. PROMOTION ROUTE CORRECTED: Sunderland were promoted via the 2024-25 Championship play-offs (beat Coventry in the semi-final, then Sheffield United 2-1 in the Wembley final on 24 May 2025), securing a place in the 2025/26 Premier League — their first top-flight season since 2016/17. This is NOT a 2026/27 promotion; as of today (2026-08-10) Sunderland are entering their SECOND consecutive PL season (2026/27), having just finished a surprise 7th in 2025/26 and qualified for the Europa League. BASIS USED: (B) — a consistent PL-basis projection for the 2025/26 season (their most recently completed campaign, the best available basis for the 2026/27 dataset), not their last-filed Championship accounts, per matchdayfinance.com's 'Sunderland Financial Update: Season 2025/26' analysis. Revenue (~£213m: ~£168m broadcast/prize money, ~£19m matchday, ~£26m commercial) and player_trading_profit (~£7m) are matchdayfinance's own PL-basis estimates. squad_cost (£160.6m) is back-solved from matchdayfinance's own published SCR estimate of 'approximately 73%' against adjusted revenue (213+7=220m), per the site's priority-order rule to prefer a published analyst SCR estimate over an own composition. Components are stored as null rather than the analyst's disclosed £140-150m wages + ~£50m amortisation, because those sum to ~£190-200m of TOTAL STAFF COSTS (explicitly including non-playing staff per the article) — inconsistent with the narrower SCR-basis squad cost implied by the 73% figure; storing both would be self-contradictory (same treatment as the Brighton row). matchdayfinance itself caveats 'it is too early to assess compliance for next season' and flags this estimate as preliminary/illustrative rather than fully disclosed. UEFA overlay: Sunderland qualified for the Europa League via their 7th-place PL finish, so uefa_competition is set; matchdayfinance explicitly flags their SCR as 'marginally above the UEFA 70% limit' despite being comfortably under the PL's 85% green threshold — a live example of the two-regimes-at-once problem. 3-YEAR TRADING PROFIT / TRANSFERMARKT NOTE: Kept null deliberately, NOT because the figures are unknown. Audited accounts (Companies House, company no. 00049116) give exact 'Profit on disposal of player contracts' figures: FY ended 31 Jul 2025 (2024/25, promotion season) = +£45,843,000 (matches the ~£45.9m figure referenced elsewhere); FY ended 31 Jul 2024 (2023/24) = +£8,818,000; FY ended 31 Jul 2023 (2022/23) = +£306,000. Turnover for those years (£39.4m, £37.5m, £35.1m) is Championship-basis, roughly a fifth of the ~£213m PL-basis 2025/26 revenue this row uses. Same judgment call as Leeds United: do NOT use these for 3-year smoothing against the PL-basis row. Sunderland's 2024/25 trading profit of +£45.8m was the primary financial engine of the club's promotion push (a Championship squad cashed in as the club went up) — not a repeatable feature of a PL-level squad, and blending it into a PL-basis adjusted-revenue denominator would flatter the club with a windfall unrelated to their current, much larger wage bill. The single-year 2025/26 PL-basis figure (+£7m, per matchdayfinance) is retained as-is with this caveat: Sunderland's own most recent Championship season included a far larger one-off trading profit, so how their PL-level trading activity actually behaves going forward is genuinely unresolved, not something this dataset should paper over by blending incompatible bases. Transfermarkt current squad value: €392.08m, converted to GBP at an assumed rate of £0.86/€1 (approximate mid-2026 rate), giving £337,189,000 — a sanity-check figure only, reflecting the current PL-level squad, independent of the basis-mismatch question above. Summer 2026 window: spend £63.7m, sales £32.0m, net spend £31.7m (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 →