Premier League SCR head-to-head
Arsenal vs Chelsea
Side by side
Arsenal
- Estimated revenue (football) reported £691m
- + Player trading profit/loss (3-yr average) +£47.7m
- Latest single season was +£81.2m not used alone
- = Adjusted revenue (SCR basis) £738.7m
- 85% SCR limit £627.9m
- Estimated squad cost estimated £424.9m
- Player wages £260.1m
- Player amortisation £140.1m
- Agents' fees £24.7m
- Squad cost = player wages + player amortisation + agents' fees. Composed estimate — no club discloses the SCR split.
- Headroom vs 85% limit +£203m
- Red Threshold (115% of adjusted revenue) £849.5m
- Headroom vs Red Threshold +£424.6m
UEFA squad cost rule (UEFA Champions League) — a separate regulator's rule, running alongside the domestic one
- UEFA limit (70% of adjusted revenue) £517.1m
- Headroom vs UEFA limit +£92.2m
For reference, Transfermarkt's current squad market value is £1,207m (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.
Chelsea
- Estimated revenue (football) reported £490.9m
- + Player trading profit/loss (3-yr average) +£91.1m
- Latest single season was +£57.9m not used alone
- = Adjusted revenue (SCR basis) £582m
- 85% SCR limit £494.7m
- Estimated squad cost estimated £407.4m
- Components not itemised — squad cost is anchored to a published analyst estimate rather than composed from wages, amortisation and agents' fees.
- Headroom vs 85% limit +£87.3m
- Red Threshold (115% of adjusted revenue) £669.3m
- Headroom vs Red Threshold +£261.9m
For reference, Transfermarkt's current squad market value is £1,174.1m (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.
What drives the difference
Neither club has an owner top-up to lean on: Premier League SCR is 85% of adjusted revenue, full stop, with a 30% allowance above it that shrinks after any breach. Adjusted revenue nets in profit on player sales averaged over three seasons — Arsenal +£47.7m, Chelsea +£91.1m — so a club that sells well buys itself headroom without touching its wage bill. Arsenal is also bound by UEFA's stricter 70% rule this season, which is the tighter constraint of the two for most clubs in Europe.