Bournemouth's squad cost ratio: the profitable selling has stopped, and the rule has not noticed yet

Correction, 21 September 2026. The ratio is 80.5%, revised from 81.8%, and 100.2% before player trading, from 101.9%, after five transfer fees were taken to their base amounts. The probability estimate above the threshold falls from 11% to 3.9%, and the range no longer reaches the green line. The population has since been reconciled against the Premier League’s own squad returns, so the figures are no longer marked pending. The article’s argument is unchanged.

Correction, 23 September 2026. Two corrections to Antoine Semenyo’s record, both from AFC Bournemouth’s own announcements. His sale to Manchester City is taken at £64.0m on 9 January 2026; the ledger had carried £62.5m and 30 January. And both of his contract extensions, of 8 July 2024 and 1 July 2025, are applied in date order, which raises his carrying value at the sale and so lowers the profit on it. Together they take the three-year average of sale profit to £57.0m, from £56.8m, and before player trading to 100.2%, from 100.3%; next season’s figure falls to 86.9%. The ratio is 80.5% and the argument is unchanged.

Correction, 24 September 2026. The range, green headroom and stress case are now 77.3% to 83.7%, £13.0m and 91.1%; they were not updated with the Semenyo corrections of 23 September. The comparison with Brighton uses Brighton’s corrected figures. The headline 80.5% and 100.2% before player trading are unchanged.

Correction, 25 September 2026. The ratio is 80.6%, from 80.5%, and 100.2% before player trading is unchanged. Bournemouth’s departure record was rebuilt from the club’s own announcements. Marcos Senesi left when his contract expired on 30 June 2026, the last day of 2025/26, so the write-off of his remaining book value belongs to that year rather than this one. Hamed Traoré’s move to Marseille was a season-long loan in 2025/26 that became permanent on 2 July 2026, at £6.4m. Nine sale dates were replaced with the club’s completion dates and six academy departures were added, none of them priced. And Antoine Semenyo’s sale to Manchester City is taken at the £62.5m guaranteed fee, not £64.0m: the deal carries a further £1.5m of performance-related add-ons, and add-ons are counted only once they are earned. The correction of 23 September attributed £64.0m to Bournemouth’s own announcement, but that announcement gives no figure, only a club record; £64.0m is the reported total including the add-ons. 2025/26 disposal profit is now £84.2m and this season’s loss £5.2m. The three-year average is £56.7m, green headroom £12.7m, the range 77.4% to 83.8%, the stress case 91.2%, 4.2% of modelled outcomes land above 85%, and next season’s figure is 87.1%. The table of the years behind the average also now shows the figures it is built from; it had still carried those from before the Semenyo corrections of 23 September. Separately, Brighton’s transfer record was rebuilt from the club’s own announcements, and the comparison below uses its corrected 77.8% and 31.4 points. Brighton’s completed disposals this season fall from £137.4m to £85.2m because Jan Paul van Hecke’s £52m sale to Tottenham completed on 18 June 2026, inside Brighton’s previous financial year.

Correction, 26 September 2026. The ratio is 80.8%, from 80.6%, and 100.5% before player trading, from 100.2%. Veljko Milosavljević’s fee from Red Star is taken at the reported €15m, £13.0m, rather than a £10m placeholder, and he is dated from his transfer on 1 September 2025. Amortisation is £86.8m, green headroom £12.1m, the range 77.6% to 84.1%, 5.0% of modelled outcomes land above 85%, the stress case is 91.4%, and next season’s figure is 87.3%. The comparison with Brighton uses Brighton’s corrected figures: 76.9%, 107.9% before player trading, 21.5 points added by the rule and 31.0 points from player sales.

Corrections, 1 and 2 October 2026. The ratio is 83.0%, from 80.8%, and 101.9% before player trading, from 100.5%. Agents’ fees now use the FA’s published figure for Bournemouth, £20.9m rather than an assumed £15.0m. Milos Kerkez’s book value had been removed from the pool written down this season although he left before the year end, which understated amortisation. Bristol City’s 20% sell-on on Antoine Semenyo, £10.7m, is now deducted, and the costs, terms and dates of Zabarnyi, Ünal, Senesi, Doak, Billing and Ouattara follow the clubs and contemporaneous reports; Ouattara’s sale is taken at the £37m base fee. The squad cost is £237.7m and the three-year average of sale profit £53.2m, with this season’s disposals a net loss of £8.2m. Green headroom is £5.8m, the range 79.6% to 86.3% and the stress case 94.1%, and about 22% of modelled outcomes land above 85%, up from 5%. Next season’s figure, with the oldest selling year leaving the average and nothing replacing it, is 92.8%, not about 89% as first given. The conclusion does not change: the central estimate is inside the line, the top of the range crosses it, and next season’s figure is above it.

Correction, 3 October 2026. The ratio is 82.8%, from 83.0%, and 101.6% before player trading, from 101.9%. Counted, from archived match reports. The rule counts the average number of home FA Cup and League Cup matches over the last three seasons, rounded up. Bournemouth played eight (four, three and one), so the rule counts three, where we had assumed two. The rule divides last season’s receipts by last season’s home matches. Bournemouth played 20 (19 league and one cup), where we had assumed 21. Re-estimated, by our method. Last season’s matchday receipts are not yet filed. We had carried £17.0m; the estimate is now £16.1m: the filed 2024/25 figure of £15.6m, scaled for the change in home matches (cup ties from 3 to 1), with a cup tie counted as 0.15 of a league match and a European match as 0.25, plus 5% for the year. The method, and how far it could be out, is set out in How we estimate matchday revenue. Matchday revenue under the rule is £21.0m, from £20.2m. The chance that Bournemouth’s ratio is above 85% is about 20%, from about 22%. Also moved: the range is 79.4 to 86.1%, from 79.6 to 86.3%; green headroom is £6.4m, from £5.8m; and the stress case is 93.8%, from 94.1%. A separate review of agents’ fees on signings since the last accounts is under way and may raise this figure; we will report its result.

Correction, 3 October 2026 (second of the day). The ratio is 81.7%, not the 82.8% we published earlier today, and 100.3% before player trading, not 101.6%. We had charged one signing twice. Adrien Truffert signed on 16 June 2025, two weeks before Bournemouth’s financial year ended on 30 June, so his cost is already inside the book value in the accounts this reconstruction starts from. We had dated him to 10 July, a date with no source, and charged him again as a signing made after the year end. The club’s accounts are consistent with the correction: they give £115.9m for registrations acquired after 30 June 2025, which fits the five other summer signings and not six. Charged once, the squad costs £234.8m, from £237.7m. Also moved: the range is 78.4 to 85.1%, from 79.4 to 86.1%; green headroom is £9.4m, from £6.4m; the stress case is 92.6%, from 93.8%; and the chance that the ratio is above 85% is about 10%, from about 20%. This figure may move again. Bournemouth’s accounts split matchday income into four lines and we had added all four together; two of them, shop sales and other income, are not gate receipts as the rule defines them. We are setting one definition of gate receipts for all 20 clubs, and at Bournemouth it would raise the ratio. A separate review of agents’ fees on signings since the last accounts is under way and may raise this figure; we will report its result.

Correction, 4 October 2026. The ratio is 85.2%, from 81.7%, and 104.7% before player trading, from 100.3%. The squad cost rule defines three things in its own terms, and in each we had used the figure from a club’s accounts (Three definitions in the squad cost rule, and what they change). What a registration costs. The rule counts everything a club pays in connection with a transfer: the fee, the League’s 4% transfer levy and agents’ fees. For players signed since Bournemouth’s last accounts we now count the reported fee plus 12%. Squad cost is £237.6m, from £234.8m, and the three-year average of sale profit is £51.9m, from £53.2m, because a player sold now leaves at a higher book value. This is the result of the review of agents’ fees that our earlier notes promised. Merchandise. The rule counts merchandise at gross profit, sales less the cost of the goods, where we had counted sales in full. Bournemouth’s accounts give the cost of the goods, and we take off £1.2m. Gate receipts. Bournemouth’s accounts print four lines and we had added all four together. Two of them, shop sales and other income, are not gate receipts as the rule defines them. The base is now ticket income of £6.7m and the “hospitality and events” line of £4.7m, which the accounts do not split: £11.4m, where we had £15.6m. Matchday revenue under the rule is £15.3m, from £21.0m. On ticket income alone the ratio would be 87.2%. Cup prize money. The rule counts a three-year average of what a club received from the FA Cup and the EFL Cup. We had entered £2.5m for Bournemouth, a figure with no calculation behind it. Rebuilt from Bournemouth’s cup ties in the last three seasons and the FA’s published prize fund and broadcast fees, it is £0.3m, in a range of £0.3m to £1.4m. The figure is provisional: the EFL publishes no prize money, some broadcast fees are not published, and the top of the range allows for a share of the gate at away ties, which the rule may or may not count. The revenue the rule counts is £226.9m, from £234.0m. Also moved: the range is 79.8 to 87.4%, from 78.4 to 85.1%; squad cost is £0.6m more than 85% of the revenue the rule counts, where it was £9.4m less; the stress case is 96.3%, from 92.6%; the chance that the ratio is above 85% is about 34%, from about 10%. On the line. The central figure is 85.2%, 0.2 points above the 85% threshold; the range is 79.8 to 87.4%, and about 34% of the modelled outcomes are above 85%. The estimate does not reliably tell which side of the line Bournemouth are on. The range now carries the uncertainty of three inputs we had entered without a calculation, as well as the cup figure: the share of the wage bill that is the squad, last season’s commercial revenue and the European reference amount. Most of the range lies below the central figure because the squad’s share of wages could be lower than we take it to be and hardly higher. If a club’s share of the gate at away cup ties counts as cup income, and is at its upper bound, the central figure is 84.9%. Three bands for the squad’s share of the wage bill need telling apart. 76 to 84% was printed in this article in error. 78 to 86% is what the model used, and its midpoint, 82%, is still the central value. 70 to 86% is the new range of uncertainty, deliberately widened, because the accounts do not exclude a share as low as 70%.

Correction, 5 October 2026. The ratio is 85.5%, from 85.2%, and 105.2% before player trading, from 104.7%. We now measure each contract from the day the player was registered to the day it ends. A player who signs in August on a five-year deal has a contract of four years and ten months, because contracts end on 30 June; we had spread his cost over five full years. 22 of Bournemouth’s contract lengths change, 16 of them against an end date we have derived as the 30 June the announced length points to, where no source states the date. The yearly charge for registrations is £87.1m, from £86.1m. The range is 80.1% to 87.7%, from 79.8% to 87.4%. About 38% of our modelled outcomes are above the 85% line, from 34%; the estimate does not reliably tell which side of the line the club is on. No threshold is crossed. Most clubs move because contract costs are now measured to their actual or derived expiry dates; six also move for club-specific reasons. See the engine changelog.

Update, 7 October 2026. The ratio is unchanged at 85.5%, in a range of 80.1% to 87.7%. About 37% of our modelled outcomes are above the 85% line, from 38%; the estimate does not reliably tell which side of the line the club is on. Two signing dates now follow the announcements of the day (Djordje Petrovic, 16 July 2025; Amine Adli, 21 August 2025). See the engine changelog.

Update, 7 October 2026, second correction of the day. Bournemouth’s own figures are unchanged. The comparison with Brighton uses Brighton’s corrected figures: its ratio is 79.5%, from 79.9%, and 110.2% before player trading, from 110.9%; the revenue the rule adds is worth 23.1 points to Brighton, from 22.4, and player trading 30.7 points, from 31.1.

Correction, 9 October 2026. The ratio is unchanged at 85.5%, and 105.2% before player trading, unchanged. Last season’s commercial revenue is now estimated by one published method, the same for every club. Bournemouth’s 2025/26 accounts are not filed, so the figure is an estimate. We had £23.9m, a judgement of ours. It is now £23.8m: the £20.0m filed for 2024/25, grown by 19.3%, the rate the method gives a commercial income of that size (how we estimate last season’s commercial revenue). It is drawn between £14.0m and £37.7m, where we had £20.0m to £28.9m: the new span comes from how far forecasts of this kind have missed in past seasons. The range is 79.5% to 87.8%, from 80.1% to 87.7%. About 35% of our modelled outcomes are above the 85% line, from 37%: the estimate does not reliably tell which side of the line Bournemouth are on. The published ratio crosses no threshold. This article said the Europa League reference amount was the second largest source of modelled variance; it now says that last season’s commercial and gate revenue, which are not yet filed, are the second largest, about a fifth of the variance against about three-fifths for the wage estimate. The comparison with Brighton uses Brighton’s figures of this update. The stress case is now described as what it is: the worst case on costs alone, with revenue held at the central estimate. The table of later tests holds this season’s revenue fixed and does not forecast next season’s commercial revenue; it is now labelled so. See the engine changelog.

Clarification, 15 October 2026. Wording only; no figure changed. The ranges in this article are assumption ranges, the spread of the model’s inputs between assumed bounds, not calibrated or confidence intervals, and the shares of modelled outcomes above or below a threshold quoted in the notes above are withdrawn.

Updated 16 October 2026: loans out now recorded; wage relief shown in ranges. The central figure is unchanged at 85.5%. Bournemouth’s players out on loan are now recorded. Nobody has said how much of their wages the borrowing clubs pay, so the possible saving widens the assumption range rather than moving the central figure: the range is 79.0% to 87.6%, from 79.5% to 87.8%, and still spans 85%, so the estimate does not reliably tell which side of the line Bournemouth are on. The stress case, the worst case on costs alone, is 97.9%, from 96.6%. See the engine changelog.

Correction, 22 October 2026. The ratio is unchanged at 85.5%, and 105.2% before player trading. The figure for the March 2028 test is 88.2%, not 96.0%. The rule averages the profit on sales in the six most recent transfer windows (Rule A.1.53), not in financial years. The figure had taken the whole of 2024/25’s £91.0m out of the average at the March 2028 test, but the period for that test starts in February 2025, so the June 2025 sales of Huijsen, Kerkez and Anthony stay in it for one more test. The accounts do not split the £91.0m by window, so those three sales are rebuilt one by one from their reported fees and remaining costs, less the shares of the gain reported as owed to Juventus and AZ: about £65.7m of profit. Costs and revenue are held at this season’s figures, with no new selling. The current test is not materially affected: its period also takes in February to June 2024, and the filed profit for the whole of 2023/24 was £0.3m.

• Solanke: the £91.0m also includes Dominic Solanke’s sale to Tottenham in August 2024, which the article had left out.
• Loans: the £1.7m that reduces the loan line is the loan fee Fiorentina are reported to pay for Álex Jiménez, set against his own costs under the guidance to Rule A.1.29(g). The article had described it as wage contributions from six loanees. Four players are out on loan, and what their borrowers pay towards wages still only widens the range.
• Ünal: neither club published the terms of his move to Getafe. The article now says no upfront fee was reported, and that any bonus or sell-on would count only when earned.
• The twenty clubs together come to 74.9%, from 75.6%, with the same correction at other clubs.
• Editorial: the title says the profitable selling has stopped. The revenue set by the rule’s bases is no longer described as revenue Bournemouth did not earn. The closing summary list, which repeated the figures above it, is removed, and the description and image descriptions are shortened.

Correction, 23 October 2026. Bournemouth’s squad cost is £1.4m more than 85% of the revenue the rule counts plus the three-year average of sale profit, where the article said £1.5m in two places: the figure had not been brought up to date when an earlier correction moved it. The ratio, 85.5%, and everything else are unchanged. See the engine changelog.

Correction, 24 October 2026. Squad cost is about £1.4m a year more than 85% of the revenue the rule counts, from £1.5m, in the list of what the estimate does not say. The note of 23 October said £1.5m had been corrected in two places; it was in three, and this is the third. The ratio, 85.5%, is unchanged. Separately, the article said all of 2025/26’s selling leaves the average at the March 2029 test. The rule averages the sales of the six most recent transfer windows (Rule A.1.53), so the sales of February to June 2026, a loss of about £8.4m, stay in for that test and leave at the March 2030 test. The sentence now says so; the article prints no figure for either test.

Correction, 25 October 2026. No figure changed. The sources said amortisation is capped at five years under Rule A.1.22(c) without the cut-off: the cap applies to contracts signed or extended on or after 12 December 2023, and earlier contracts run their full term. The sentence now says so, as the body has since 25 October.

Correction, 26 October 2026. The ratio is unchanged at 85.5%. Bournemouth’s loan income is now in the range. Fees a club receives for lending players count with the profit on player sales (the guidance to Rule A.1.29(g)). The filed accounts give a total for loan income without saying how much is fee and how much is wages recharged, so the central figure counts none of it and the range allows anything from none to all of it; only income from 2 February 2024 counts (Rule A.1.53), and 2025/26’s waits for the accounts. Bournemouth filed £15.2m for 2024/25 and £8.3m for 2023/24. The range is 78.4% to 87.0%, from 79.0% to 87.6%. Elsewhere in the article, the twenty clubs together come to 75.0%, from 74.9%. Fees paid and received for head coaches now count, at Manchester City, Chelsea, Brentford, Ipswich, Newcastle and Crystal Palace (Rules A.1.22(d) and A.1.29(g)).

Correction, 28 October 2026. The ratio is 85.4%, from 85.5%, and 105.0% before player trading, from 105.2%: 0.4 percentage points above the 85% line, from 0.5. We checked every transfer in our records against published sources and corrected sixteen entries at eleven clubs where the club’s announcement or a reputable report, read on the page, gives a different fee, contract length or date. Alex Toth signed for five and a half years, to June 2031, not June 2030. His fee is spread over the longer contract (Rule A.1.22(c)). Amortisation is £86.8m, from £87.1m, and the squad cost £238.3m, from £238.6m, £1.1m over the line, from £1.4m. The range is 78.3% to 86.9%, from 78.4% to 87.0%; without the revenue the rule adds the ratio is 137.2%, from 137.4%; the stress case 97.8%, from 97.9%. The March 2028 test is 88.1%, from 88.2%. Bournemouth’s Amine Adli fee is a headline: if only the reported €21m is guaranteed, the ratio would be 84.8% (the engine’s known limits now say so).

Correction, 31 October 2026. The twenty clubs together come to 75.3%, from 75.1%, because Chelsea’s and Liverpool’s filed sale profit replaces our modelled figures and 19 transfer entries are corrected across the league. Bournemouth’s own ratio, 85.4%, is unchanged. Figures that follow from these are restated with them in the text. The correction does not reverse the article’s conclusion.

Correction, 1 November 2026. Bournemouth’s ratio is unchanged at 85.4%. The opening gave the March 2028 test as 88.2%; it is 88.1%, as the rest of the article said. The gap to the line is 0.4 points, where two passages said 0.5. The article said the club itself discloses nine sales; note 35 gives no names or number, and nine is the count in our ledger. It said the three mechanisms answered the difference between fees and profit; £32.0m between our reconstruction and the filed profit remains unexplained, and the nine are our assumption of what the note covers. It now also says that the same method produces Semenyo’s profit and the May and June 2025 rebuild. Enes Ünal and Hamed Traoré were said to have reached the ordinary end of their contracts; both had contracts to 2028. Ünal’s move was made permanent in May 2024, which the article had not said, and his £6.7m loss is marked as an estimate. Jaidon Anthony’s sale was dated to June 2025; Burnley announced it in May. The label “revenue added by the rule” is replaced, because Bournemouth earned the merit by finishing sixth, and the article now separates it from the European reference amounts. The sources said the European money depended on progressing beyond the qualifying stage; Bournemouth entered at the league phase. The sentence that no club discloses its players’ wage bill now speaks only of Bournemouth, and the passage on February to June 2024 now says what we found in those months, not what the annual figure implied.

Correction, 2 November 2026. Bournemouth’s ratio is unchanged at 85.4%. The article said that on ticket income alone, without the unsplit hospitality and events line, the ratio would be 87.5%. Recomputed on the current figures, with the gate estimate rebuilt on ticket income of £6.7m in place of £11.4m, it is 87.4%; the 87.5% had not been updated with later corrections. It is still above the line.

Correction, 3 November 2026. The ratio is unchanged at 85.4%; the range is 78.2% to 86.8% (previously 78.3% to 86.9%), and 105.1% before player trading (previously 105.0%). The dates of four signings and loans now follow the clubs’ own announcements.