Stefan Borson: Man City among clubs ‘closest to breaching’ new financial rules
Manchester City and their Premier League rivals are set to operate under new financial rules.
At the latest meeting of the Premier League clubs on 21 November, the 20 top-flight sides voted 14 to six in favour of the squad cost ratio (SCR) system being adopted from the 2026-27 campaign onwards.
Under the SCR rules, clubs will only be able to spend 85 per cent of their revenue on squad costs, while that figure drops to 70 per cent for teams competing in European competitions.
It is understood Man City voted in favour of the new spending rules, while Bournemouth, Brighton, Brentford, Crystal Palace, Fulham and Leeds United all voted against adopting them.
Meanwhile, the Premier League’s salary-cap plans suffered a blow after its top-to-bottom anchoring (TBA) proposal only received the support of seven clubs, with 14 votes required for any motion to be approved.
Fans to face issues with new Premier League rules
Former Man City financial adviser Stefan Borson exclusively told Football Insider Pep Guardiola’s side are among the clubs who are “closest” to breaching the SCR rules.
Premier League clubs currently operate under the profit and sustainability rules (PSR), where they are only permitted to make £105million of losses over a rolling three-year period.
Speaking exclusively to Football Insider about the SCR rules, Borson said: “I think from the fans’ perspective, it's going to be very hard for people to understand it. That's the first thing. It's not a clear system.
“The numbers that are used by the clubs in particular in terms of the wage cost will never be public, except for one or two clubs. Crystal Palace, for example, are the only team in the Premier League that break out their first team’s wage cost.
“Nobody else does, so everybody else we're sort of guessing, and we're never going to really know how close or not the clubs are. We're going to have to make some guesses. We've had to make guesses on PSR as well, but this will be more when you do go through the numbers and when you do the sort of analysis slash guess forecast, we're looking a long way out, obviously.”
The Premier League has faced criticism for its PSR rules, with the likes of Everton and Nottingham Forest previously handed points deductions for their spending breaches.
Tottenham to benefit from SCR rules
While Man City and some of the other top clubs are close to breaching, Borson expects the new rules to work in Tottenham’s favour.
“What's interesting is teams who are closest to breaching are actually the big players, City, United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea,” said Borson.
“Those are the ones that are closest. Spurs are nowhere near because if you run a wage bill at the level that they do, you can have a lot of leeway.
“Even at 70 per cent, this system works quite well for Spurs. For the rest of them, they're actually very close.”
Man City generated a revenue of £715m in their latest published accounts for 2023-24, while their wage bill stood at £413m.
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