Premier League parachute payments · 2026/27
Parachute payments explained: how much do relegated clubs get?
Parachute money is the single biggest reason Championship revenues are so uneven. A club in year one of its cycle can earn roughly ten times the solidarity payment a non-parachute club receives — and because SCR caps squad cost at 85% of revenue, a bigger denominator means a much bigger spending limit. The table below shows every 2026/27 parachute club and where it sits in the cycle.
2026/27 parachute clubs
| Club | Division | Parachute year | Revenue | SCR ratio | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| West Ham United P | EFL Championship | Year 1 (relegated May 2026) | £228m reported | 77.2% | High spending power |
| Leicester City P | EFL League One | Year 2 (relegated May 2025) | £186.5m reported | — | Assessed under SCMP |
| Wolverhampton Wanderers P | EFL Championship | Year 1 (relegated May 2026) | £172m reported | 94.2% | Balanced |
| Southampton P | EFL Championship | Year 2 (relegated May 2025) | £158.4m reported | 73.1% | High spending power |
| Burnley P | EFL Championship | Year 1 (relegated May 2026) | £71.7m reported | 114.8% | Restricted |
Leicester City appear as a League One club: they were relegated again in 2026, but still receive the year two payment from their 2025 drop out of the Premier League. Payments follow the club, not the division it happens to be in. Their spending is measured under League One's SCMP, not SCR — see the SCMP explainer for how that test works.
Revenue here is each club's last filed accounts, which for most of these clubs covers a Premier League season. Those figures will fall sharply in the Championship, so the ratios above are a starting point rather than a forecast — the dataset note further down says the same.
How much are parachute payments in 2026/27?
The instalments are defined as shares of one Premier League equal-share broadcast payment, so the cash figure moves with the broadcast deal. Press estimates for 2026/27 sit in the ranges below; 55/45/20 of an equal share of roughly £89m gives £48.95m, £40.05m and £17.8m.
| Year | Share of equal-share payment | Approx. 2026/27 amount |
|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | 55% | ~£49m–£55m |
| Year 2 | 45% | ~£40m |
| Year 3 (only if more than one PL season) | 20% | ~£18m–£22m |
| Non-parachute Championship club (solidarity) | — | ~£5.5m |
Ranges rather than single numbers, because the final equal share is not fixed until the season's broadcast income is settled. Estimates from Grosvenor (27 April 2026), The Ball Business (7 May 2026) and Sheff United Way; the solidarity figure from Premier Pulse. The structure itself is set out in the Premier League's parachute and solidarity payments and analysed by theesk.org.
How parachutes set the Championship owner top-up
The owner top-up is not a fixed number. The EFL derives the Championship equity allowance — the "Flexible Equity Allowance" — each season from the gap between a first-year parachute payment and the Championship solidarity payment: 25% of that gap per season (the baseline, about £11.4m in 2026/27), tripled to give the £34.3m rolling three-year Total Allowance, with the £16m annual cap set at 35% of the same gap. The EFL's Annex C worked example for 2026/27 uses a £51.3m parachute and roughly £5.5m of solidarity.
That produces an odd result. A parachute club inflates its own SCR denominator — 85% of a much bigger revenue is a far higher squad-cost limit — and, through the size of the parachute gap, also sets how much owner equity every other Championship club is allowed to add on top. The bigger the parachute, the bigger the allowance the clubs competing against it are permitted.
See every Championship club's SCR limit →
Clubs whose cycle ended
- Sheffield United — Promoted 2023, relegated after the single 2023/24 season — two-year entitlement (2024/25 and 2025/26), expired summer 2026
- Luton Town — Promoted 2023, relegated after the single 2023/24 season — two-year entitlement (2024/25 and 2025/26), expired summer 2026
Ipswich Town are the flip side of the same rule and do not appear in the table above. They were relegated in 2025, promoted straight back in 2026, and so forfeit their year two payment: promotion ends the entitlement just as a single Premier League season caps it at two years.
Status key
How did the 2026 summer window measure up against this headroom? Spending power vs actual spend →
Are parachute payments being cut?
Not yet. The Independent Football Regulator, created by the Football Governance Act 2025, has backstop powers over how money is distributed between the leagues, and parachute payments are within scope of its State of the Game review — a draft is due later in 2026, with the final report in spring 2027.
Separately, in July–August 2026 Premier League clubs approved a roughly £1.5bn, 10-year EFL funding offer that included plans to reduce parachute payments gradually. The EFL board called the terms inadequate on 13 August 2026 and has not accepted them. As of 10 September 2026, no decision to cut or abolish parachute payments had been taken.
The change that has already happened is the switch from PSR to SCR. Under PSR, a recent Premier League season lifted a club's permitted losses, so parachute clubs carried a history bonus into the calculation. SCR has no such bonus: every club is judged on this season's revenue — which is still where the parachute lands. PSR vs SCR, side by side →