Fulham's squad cost ratio: a squad that costs more than everything the rule counts

Update, 22 September 2026. The population has since been reconciled against the Premier League’s own squad returns, so the figures are no longer marked pending. Earlier updates on 15 and 18 September reclassified Hugo Larsson, who had been carried as a permanent signing when he arrived on loan, and completed a wage roll-forward that had skipped the January 2026 window; those moved the ratio to 101.3% and that work stands.

Update, 24 September 2026. Fulham’s own figures are unchanged. The comparison with Brighton uses Brighton’s corrected 77.6% and 109.2% before player trading, so the gaps quoted are 3.1, 23.7 and 20.6 points.

Correction, 25 September 2026. The sale dates of Issa Diop (22 July) and Saša Lukić (8 August) are corrected to Fulham’s own announcements, from 20 and 25 August. A sale made earlier carries a little more book value, so 2026/27’s profit on player sales falls from £11.2m to £10.8m and the three-year average from £23.4m to £23.3m. The ratio stays at 101.3%; the range moves from 98.1–104.6% to 98.2–104.7%. One unrelated figure is also corrected: the gap between Fulham’s and Brighton’s published ratios is 23.7 points, not 23.9, as the comparison table already showed. The comparison with Brentford now uses Brentford’s three-year average of £53.7m, from £54.7m, after Brentford’s departure record was rebuilt the same day and two missing release write-offs were added.

Fulham’s transfer record was then rebuilt from the club’s own announcements, which moves the ratio from 101.3% to 102.0%. Adama Traoré’s sale to West Ham had been carried at an estimated £6.0m with no source behind it; the reported fee is £1.0m, rising to £2m with add-ons, and only the base is counted. That lowers 2025/26’s profit on player sales from £17.9m to £13.0m and the three-year average from £23.3m to £21.7m. Raúl Jiménez, Harry Wilson and Steven Benda had been recorded as free transfers but left when their contracts expired, Andreas Pereira’s and Martial Godo’s sales are dated from their completions, and Harvey Araujo’s academy sale to Burton is added. The range moves to 98.8–105.4%, the stress case to 113.7%, and the gap to Brighton’s published ratio to 24.4 points. Brighton’s own record was rebuilt the same day, moving its ratio to 77.8% and its three-year sale-profit average to £93.4m, so the gaps quoted below are now 24.2 and 21.1 points. Newcastle’s three-year sale-profit average, quoted below for scale, is now £98.3m after its own rebuild, from a stale £96.8m.

Update, 26 September 2026. Fulham’s own figures are unchanged. The comparison with Brighton uses Brighton’s corrected 76.9% and 107.9% before player trading, so the gaps quoted are 4.4, 25.1 and 20.7 points.

Corrections, 1 and 2 October 2026. The ratio is 102.6%, from 102.0%, and 113.2% before player trading, from 112.3%. Agents’ fees now use the FA’s published figure for Fulham, £11.4m; this article had cited an FA figure of around £10m. Saša Lukić’s cost is the reported total of £8m rather than £13m, Andreas Pereira’s the £8m base Sky reported, and Pereira’s and Issa Diop’s arrivals are dated from their signings. The squad cost is £242.5m and the three-year average of sale profit £22.0m. Fulham are £41.7m above the green line, the range is 99.5% to 106.1% and the stress case 114.5%, still below the red line. The Larsson loan-only alternative is 100.7%, and the January sale profit needed to reach 85% is about £147m. The check against the filed note is looser than before: the ledger gives £13.27m for the summer 2025 transactions against the filed £12.2m, about 9% above it. The comparisons with Brighton, Newcastle and Brentford use their current figures. The conclusion does not change: Fulham are above the green line on every modelled draw and below the red line.

Update, 3 October 2026. The ratio is unchanged at 102.6%; before player trading it is 113.1%, from 113.2%. Two inputs behind it were corrected and their effects cancel. 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. Fulham played eleven (five, two and four), so the rule counts four, where we had assumed two. The rule divides last season’s receipts by last season’s home matches. Fulham played 23 (19 league and four cup), where we had assumed 21. Re-estimated, by our method. Last season’s matchday receipts are not yet filed. We had carried £19.0m; the estimate is now £19.2m: the filed 2024/25 figure of £18.0m, scaled for the change in home matches (cup ties from 2 to 4), 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 £19.2m, from £19.0m. Also moved: the range is 99.4 to 106.0%, from 99.5 to 106.1%; the squad cost is £41.5m above the green threshold, from £41.7m; and the stress case is 114.4%, from 114.5%. 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 106.0%, from 102.6%, and 117.0% before player trading, from 113.1%. 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 Fulham’s last accounts we now count the reported fee plus 12%. Squad cost is £246.0m, from £242.5m, and the three-year average of sale profit is £21.8m, from £22.0m, 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. Fulham’s accounts give no merchandise figure, so we estimate the cost of the goods from the clubs that do: £2.6m, in a range of £1.1m to £5.8m. 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 £2.0m for Fulham, a figure with no calculation behind it. Rebuilt from Fulham’s cup ties in the last three seasons and the FA’s published prize fund and broadcast fees, it is £0.5m, in a range of £0.4m to £3.6m. 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 £210.3m, from £214.4m. Also moved: the range is 102.5 to 109.3%, from 99.4 to 106.0%; the overshoot of the 85% threshold is £48.7m, from £41.5m; the stress case is 118.0%, from 114.4%. Fulham remain above the green threshold and below the red one.

Correction, 5 October 2026. The ratio is 106.4%, from 106.0%, and 117.6% before player trading, from 117.0%. 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. 14 of Fulham’s contract lengths change, 14 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 £80.5m, from £79.3m. The range is 102.9% to 109.8%, from 102.5% to 109.3%. No threshold is crossed. The contract that a loan with an obligation to buy would create is now measured in the same way. Hugo Larsson was registered on 1 September 2026 and four years were announced, so that contract is taken to end on 30 June 2030 and runs 3.83 years; his yearly charge is £5.5m, from £5.2m. Without that change the ratio would be 106.3%. 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.

Correction, 7 October 2026. The ratio is 104.0%, from 106.4%, and 114.9% before player trading, from 117.6%. Hugo Larsson is now treated as on loan. We had treated him as bought from the day he arrived, on a report that an obligation to buy had been triggered by his first appearance. That report is Kicker’s, and we have not been able to read it. Fulham’s own announcement describes a signing on a long-term deal subject to an initial loan period; Eintracht Frankfurt and the Bundesliga describe a loan with an obligation to buy if certain conditions are met, completing at the end of the season. None states the condition, that it has been met, or a fee. Frankfurt’s own report of 4 October 2026 lists him among its players out on loan for the season. This article said Fulham’s season record called the deal an option; Fulham’s announcement does not say that. If the obligation has been triggered, Fulham’s ratio is about 106.4%. Our range, 100.5% to 109.7%, covers both cases. Four signing dates now follow Fulham’s own announcements (Gonzalo García, 3 August 2026; Shea Charles, 11 August 2026; David Affengruber, 1 September 2026; Harry Wilson, 24 July 2021), and Kevin’s fee is the £34.6m reported in the press, where we had £35.0m.

Update, 7 October 2026, second correction of the day. Fulham’s own figures are unchanged. The comparison with Brighton uses Brighton’s corrected 79.5% and 110.2% before player trading, so the gaps quoted are 4.7 and 24.5 points, from 4.0 and 24.2, and player trading is worth 30.7 points to Brighton, from 31.1.

Correction, 9 October 2026. The ratio is 102.7%, from 104.0%, and 113.3% before player trading, from 114.9%. Last season’s commercial revenue is now estimated by one published method, the same for every club. Fulham’s 2025/26 accounts are not filed, so the figure is an estimate. We had £37.0m, a judgement of ours. It is now £40.0m: the £34.2m filed for 2024/25, grown by 16.9%, the rate the method gives a commercial income of that size (how we estimate last season’s commercial revenue). It is drawn between £25.4m and £59.9m, where we had drawn 7% either way: the new span comes from how far forecasts of this kind have missed in past seasons. The range is 96.8% to 109.5%, from 100.5% to 109.7%. If Hugo Larsson’s obligation to buy has been triggered the ratio is 105.0%, from 106.4%; the range covers both cases. The published ratio crosses no threshold. The stress case does cross one: this article said it reached 116.0%, above the 115% red line; it now says 114.6%, 0.4 of a point below it. The stress case is the worst case on costs alone, with every uncertain cost input set against the club at once and revenue held at the central estimate; it is not an upper bound of the modelled outcomes. This article said no modelled draw in the loan case crosses the red line; it now says 0.005% of them do, and 0.2% in the case where the obligation has been triggered, from 0.025%. This article gave a range entirely above 100%; it now says the low end of the range, 96.8%, is below 100%. See the engine changelog.

Clarification, 15 October 2026. Wording only; no figure changed. The model’s probabilities in this article are not statistically calibrated: the ranges are assumption ranges, the spread of the model’s inputs between assumed bounds, not confidence intervals. The notes above that quote a share of modelled draws crossing the 115% red line, or “every modelled draw” above 85%, are kept as published and are withdrawn as statements of probability; the assumption range of 96.8% to 109.5% is below the red line.

Updated 16 October 2026: loans out now recorded; wage relief shown in ranges. Fulham’s central figure, 102.7%, and its assumption range, 96.8% to 109.5%, do not move at the precision we print. Fulham’s players out on loan are now recorded. Nobody has said how much of their wages the borrowing clubs pay, so that saving, and the saving inside the accounts we start from on last season’s loans, widen the range rather than moving the central figure. The stress case, the worst case on costs alone, is 115.7%, from 114.6%, because it now sets the wages of last season’s loanees against the club in full. That is above the 115% red line. The stress case is not a forecast and not part of the assumption range, which stays below the red line. See the engine changelog.

Correction, 23 October 2026. The comparison gave Newcastle’s three-year average of sale profit as £92.0m and Brentford’s as £52.3m. Both clubs’ averages were corrected on 23 October, when the profit on player sales was counted over the six transfer windows the rule names (Rule A.1.53), and are £109.9m and £59.0m. Fulham’s article had kept the figures from before that correction. Fulham’s figures are unchanged. See the engine changelog.

Correction, 24 October 2026. No figure changed. The section on player trading described the sale-profit average as three financial years. The rule takes the profit or loss on sales in the six most recent transfer windows and divides it by three (Rules A.1.13 and A.1.53). For the March 2027 test that period starts on 2 February 2024. Fulham made no sale carrying value between then and the start of their 2024/25 year, so the three financial years in the table are the whole of it and the figure is unchanged. The section now says so. The article also said the £41.0m of 2024/25 leaves the calculation after this test. That remains right, because Fulham made no sale carrying value between February and June 2025, the months a later window keeps for the March 2028 test; the sentence now gives the reason.

Correction, 25 October 2026. No figure changed. The article called the facility payment the larger part of what the rule gives Fulham, while its own table of what the rule supplies holds only the £15.0m merit payment. The rule counts facility fees at the highest of last season’s televised count, the three-season average and fifteen matches (Rule A.1.29(b)). Fulham’s 26 televised appearances last season are the highest of the three, so the £17.7m is what Fulham earned, and the rule supplies none of it. The sentence now says so and explains the fifteen-match floor it mentioned.

Correction, 26 October 2026. Fulham’s ratio is unchanged at 102.7%. 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)). Brentford’s three-year average, quoted for scale, is £61.2m, from £59.0m.

Correction, 28 October 2026. Fulham’s ratio is unchanged at 102.7%. Elsewhere in the article, the twenty clubs together come to 75.1%, from 75.0%. 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. The corrections move Arsenal, Chelsea, Sunderland, Crystal Palace and Tottenham up, and Coventry, Nottingham Forest and Bournemouth down. Fulham’s own entry changes too: Cesar Palacios joined on 3 August 2026, not 1 September, and his fee is spread from that day (Rule A.1.22(c)); no figure in the article moves with it. With the obligation to buy Hugo Larsson triggered, the range now starts at 99.0%, from 99.1%.

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. Fulham’s own ratio, 102.7%, 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. Fulham’s ratio is unchanged at 102.7%. Fulham’s summer 2026 spending is about £85.9m, from £85.5m; the figure had left out Erskine Rennie’s £0.4m arrival. The article placed Oscar Bobb’s £27m after that summer; he joined on 30 January 2026, before it. It also said Fulham disclosed no transfer income, which sat wrongly beside the reported sales of Issa Diop and Saša Lukić, £17.5m together. The March 2027 consequences are now written as what would follow, because the test has not happened. The note of 5 October said four years were announced for Hugo Larsson; no source we have read states a length, and the four years is our assumption. We now call the loan our modelling assumption, and the wording no longer implies that a description of the deal settles how it is accounted for. Bild reported on 1 September that an obligation of about €25m would take effect almost at once. Where we said Fulham made no sale carrying value, we now say what we found: no sale with a known profit in those months, and one sale, Kristian Šekularac’s, at an undisclosed fee. The £15.0m above the fifteenth-place floor was described as revenue Fulham did not earn; Fulham earned it by finishing eleventh. The statement that no club discloses its players’ wage bill is now limited to Fulham’s accounts. The article also said the ledger “tends to” run ahead of filed profit, which one comparison cannot show; it now says so of this case. The summary at the end, the section on how the squad was checked and the reconciliation of the registrations note are removed from the body; the reconciliation stays in the sources and caveats. The correction does not reverse the article’s conclusion.

Correction, 1 November 2026. The ratio is 105.3%, from 102.7%, and 116.2% before player trading, from 113.3%. Hugo Larsson is now treated as bought from 1 September 2026, at about €25m, as Bild reported, in place of the loan we had assumed since 7 October. Our earlier case for a purchase used a fee from a report we no longer rely on; that figure is withdrawn. His registration costs about £24.0m and adds £6.3m a year. The loan the clubs describe stays in the range as the other case, at 102.7%. A third case takes note 19 of the accounts as complete for Kevin’s fee, which does not fit the reported £34.6m: 103.2%. The range is 96.8% to 109.8%, from 96.8% to 109.5%. Squad cost is £247.9m, from £241.6m; the distance above the green line is £47.9m, from £41.6m; the stress case is 118.4%, from 115.7%. On frozen costs the March 2028 test is 111.8%, from 109.0%. The profit needed in January to reach 85% is about £169m, from £147m. The twenty clubs together come to 75.4%, from 75.3%. No threshold is crossed.

Correction, 2 November 2026. An earlier note named the outlet that reported a transfer fee. It is not a source this publication cites, so the note now describes the source without the name. No figure changes.