3 October 2026
From this season, the Premier League has scrapped PSR. The rule that produced points deductions for Everton and Forest, endless arguments about amortisation and Chelsea selling hotels to itself has been replaced by something simpler to state and harder to game: the squad cost ratio.
It's also the financial system Manager of Football is built on, so it's worth understanding both the real rule and how it shapes your season in the game.
Clubs can spend up to 85% of their football revenue on their squad. Squad costs mean player wages, head coach wages, amortised transfer fees and agents' fees. Revenue means the money football brings in: broadcasting, matchday, commercial, prize money, plus profit or loss on player sales.
That's it. No three-year rolling window, no £105m loss allowance, no debate about whether a stadium counts. It's what you spend on the team divided by what the team earns.
PSR looked at overall losses across three years. That let clubs absorb huge squad spending if they had enough other income, and it rewarded clubs that could book one-off profits from selling assets to related companies. The Premier League has closed that loophole under the new system.
SCR was approved by clubs in November 2025 by the narrowest margin possible, 14 votes to 6. A third proposal, top-to-bottom anchoring, which would have capped everyone's spending at five times what the bottom club earned in central payments, didn't get enough support. So there's no salary cap, but there is a ratio.
It also lines the Premier League up with UEFA, whose own squad cost rule caps clubs in Europe at 70%. Nine English clubs were already living under that number.
Each club gets a green threshold at 85%. Go over it and you pay a levy. There's also a red threshold, up to 30% above green, and a multi-year allowance to spend in that band. Exhaust the allowance or breach the red line and sanctions follow, which can include sporting penalties.
Monitoring happens in October, with the main assessment on 1 March, after the January window closes. A second set of rules, called SSR, runs alongside it and checks liquidity and balance sheet health.
Three things, roughly.
Revenue matters more than owner wealth. A rich owner can't simply cover losses. If the club doesn't earn it, the club can't spend it.
Player sales are part of the calculation. Selling well doesn't just fund a purchase, it directly improves the ratio. Expect more academy graduates sold for pure profit.
Wages get scrutinised as much as fees. Under PSR, a big fee spread over five years was almost invisible. Under SCR, the wages that come with it count every single season.
Clubs with big revenues and modest wage bills have room. Clubs with owner-funded squads and mid-table income have a problem. Promoted clubs face a specific trap: their revenue jumps on promotion, but if they spend to stay up and go straight back down, the ratio blows out in the Championship.
Which is exactly the decision the game puts in front of you.
Every club in Manager of Football starts the 2026/27 season with its real squad and a squad cost ratio to manage. Your transfers, your wage bill and your player sales all move it. The board watches it. So do you, because it's the constraint that turns "buy the best striker available" into an actual decision.
In practice it means:
It's the difference between a manager game where money is a number that goes down, and one where it's a ratio you have to keep on the right side of while the board counts.
Because it's the rule the real managers are now working under, and because it makes the transfer window interesting. Under a plain budget, the optimal move is always to spend it. Under a ratio, the optimal move depends on what you earn, what you can sell, and how much risk you can stomach. That's a better game.
Manager of Football is free, runs in your browser, and has all 20 Premier League squads updated for 2026/27. Play it here.
For a free football manager game live for the 2026-27 season, check out www.manageroffootball.com.