Arsenal's squad cost ratio: a large squad cost against much larger countable revenue

Correction, 22 September 2026. The ratio is 58.0% and 61.8% before player trading, from 58.1% and 61.9%, after one transfer fee was taken to its base amount. The wage-share range quoted in the previous version, 72 to 75%, was a misstatement of the figure the reconstruction actually uses, which is 62 to 72%.

Correction, 25 September 2026. Arsenal’s transfer record was rebuilt from the club’s own announcements and the buying clubs’ filings. Two summer 2026 sales named in the sales table had not been counted: Christian Nørgaard’s move to Everton on 5 August and Fábio Vieira’s to Hamburg on 1 September for about £8.6m, so part of their book value was still being spread across this season. Correcting them lowers amortisation from £200.0m to £191.4m and the squad cost from £479.1m to £470.5m. The rebuild also dated each sale from its completion: Karl Hein’s and Jakub Kiwior’s loans were converted when Werder Bremen and Porto exercised their purchase options on 23 and 5 May 2026, inside Arsenal’s financial year to 31 May, so both sales belong to 2025/26; Kiwior’s is taken at the fixed €17m (£14.6m) in Porto’s filing to the Portuguese market regulator. Kieran Tierney, Thomas Partey and Jorginho are treated as contract expiries and a termination rather than transfers, an unrecorded academy sale (Daniel Oyetunde to Fort Wayne) is added at nil, and four fees now follow the evidence, most importantly Nuno Tavares’s, agreed at €9m (£7.6m) when Lazio took him on loan. As a result 2025/26 shows a profit on player sales of £3.9m rather than a loss, and the three-year average rises from about £50.0m to £52.6m. Together these move the ratio from 58.0% to 56.8%, and from 61.8% to 60.6% before player trading. The comparison with Nottingham Forest uses Forest’s corrected figures, and after a further Forest correction later the same day, James McAtee’s fee taken at the £22m guaranteed at signing, it uses £267.7m of squad cost, 99.4% and 125.2% before player trading, so Arsenal’s squad costs 76% more than Forest’s rather than 75%.

Update, 26 September 2026. Arsenal’s own figures are unchanged. The Brighton comparison uses Brighton’s corrected figure: player trading is worth 31.0 points there, from 31.4.

Corrections, 1 and 2 October 2026. The ratio is 55.8%, from 56.8%, and 59.6% before player trading, from 60.6%. Agents’ fees now use the FA’s published figure for Arsenal, £32.1m rather than an assumed £44m. The book value of the players who have left is now measured at Arsenal’s own year end, 31 May 2025, and five registrations are corrected: Trossard’s cost is £20m, Martinelli’s 2023 extension is included, Vieira’s sale is taken at the £7.7m base, and Tomiyasu’s and Jorginho’s contract terms follow the clubs. 2025/26 is now a £5.0m profit year, and the three-year average of sale profit is £53.1m. The squad cost is £462.2m. Green headroom is £242.3m, the range 53.1% to 58.6% and the stress case 63.9%; without the revenue the rule supplies the ratio would be 81.1%, still 3.9 points inside the threshold. Arsenal’s squad costs 77% more than Nottingham Forest’s. The conclusion does not change.

Correction, 3 October 2026. The ratio is 56.6%, from 55.8%, and 60.5% before player trading, from 59.6%. Re-estimated, by our method. Last season’s matchday receipts are not yet filed. We had carried £175.0m; the estimate is now £161.5m: the filed 2024/25 figure of £153.9m, the same mix of home matches as the year before, so last year’s filed figure plus 5%. The method, and how far it could be out, is set out in How we estimate matchday revenue. Matchday revenue under the rule is £140.0m, from £151.7m. The earlier figure was ours and had nothing under it. We had raised Arsenal’s receipts by 14% “for a deep European run”. Arsenal played seven European home matches in 2024/25 and seven in 2025/26, and the same number of home matches in all, so there was no run to allow for. Also moved: the range is 53.9 to 59.4%, from 53.1 to 58.6%; green headroom is £232.4m, from £242.3m; and the stress case is 64.8%, from 63.9%. 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 60.4%, from 56.6%, and 64.7% before player trading, from 60.5%. 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 Arsenal’s last accounts we now count the reported fee plus 12%. Squad cost is £470.7m, from £462.2m, and the three-year average of sale profit is £51.2m, from £53.1m, 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. Arsenal’s accounts give the cost of the goods, and we take off £30.9m. 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 £6.0m for Arsenal, a figure with no calculation behind it. Rebuilt from Arsenal’s cup ties in the last three seasons and the FA’s published prize fund and broadcast fees, it is £0.4m, in a range of £0.4m to £3.2m. 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 £727.7m, from £764.1m. Also moved: the range is 57.6 to 63.6%, from 53.9 to 59.4%; green headroom is £191.4m, from £232.4m; the stress case is 69.0%, from 64.8%.

Correction, 5 October 2026. The ratio is 60.7%, from 60.4%, and 65.1% before player trading, from 64.7%. 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. 25 of Arsenal’s contract lengths change, 17 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 £202.8m, from £199.6m. The range is 57.9% to 63.9%, from 57.6% to 63.6%. 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. Arsenal’s own figures are unchanged. The Brighton comparison uses Brighton’s corrected figure: player trading is worth 31.1 points there, from 30.9.

Correction, 7 October 2026, second correction of the day. The ratio is 59.5%, from 60.7%, and 63.7% before player trading, from 65.1%. We had counted four European home matches; the rule counts seven. The rule adds gate income for a club’s European home matches at the higher of two figures: the home matches it is guaranteed this season, and the average it played at home in the same competition over the last three seasons, rounded up. We had applied only the first. Arsenal played 7, 7 and 5 Champions League home matches in the last three seasons, an average of 6.33, which rounds up to 7, where we had 4. The European home gate is £37.7m, from £21.5m: seven matches, where we had four, at last season’s estimated receipts of about £5.4m a home match. The revenue the rule counts is £743.8m, from £727.7m. We read “the relevant UEFA Club Competition” as the one the club is in this season (how we count matchday revenue). The range is 56.7% to 62.6%, from 57.9% to 63.9%. Green headroom is £203.1m, from £189.4m. Neither of the rule’s thresholds, 85% and 115%, is crossed. The Brighton comparison uses Brighton’s figure of the same date: player trading is worth 30.7 points there, from 31.1. See the engine changelog.

Correction, 9 October 2026. The ratio is 59.9%, from 59.5%, and 64.2% before player trading, from 63.7%. Last season’s commercial revenue is now estimated by one published method, the same for every club. Arsenal’s 2025/26 accounts are not filed, so the figure is an estimate. We had £290.0m, a judgement of ours. It is now £284.3m: the £263.2m filed for 2024/25, grown by 8.0%, the rate the method gives a commercial income of that size (how we estimate last season’s commercial revenue). It is drawn between £231.6m and £336.4m, 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 56.6% to 63.7%, from 56.7% to 62.6%. The published ratio crosses no threshold. The stress case is now described as what it is: the worst case on costs alone, with revenue held at the central estimate. 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 ratio is 60.1%, from 59.9%, and 64.4% before player trading, from 64.2%. Arsenal’s players out on loan are now recorded, with an allowance for the part of their wages the borrowing clubs pay. Where a named source reports the split, the saving counts in the central figure: Borussia Dortmund are reported to pay all of Ethan Nwaneri’s wage this season, and Sevilla all of Albert Sambi Lokonga’s in 2024/25, a saving inside the accounts we start from that is added back, because he has since left and was taken out of the wage bill at his full salary. Both reports are relayed and not confirmed by either club. Where nobody states the split, the saving only widens the range. The squad cost is £475.4m, from £473.8m; the range is 57.0% to 64.1%, from 56.6% to 63.7%; green headroom is £196.8m, from £198.3m; the stress case is 69.9%, from 68.4%. The comparison with Nottingham Forest uses Forest’s figures of the same date. See the engine changelog.

Correction, 23 October 2026. The comparison with Nottingham Forest still gave Forest’s figures from before Forest’s correction of 23 October, which counted the profit on player sales over the six transfer windows the rule names (Rule A.1.53): Forest’s ratio is 97.6%, not 99.3%; player trading is worth 26.8 points, not 25.1; and Forest’s squad cost is £33.7m more than 85% of its countable revenue plus its three-year average of sale profit, not £37.6m. The wage figure in the text, about £249m, had also not been brought up to the £251m the sources note gives, our current estimate. Arsenal’s ratio, 60.1%, is 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. Arsenal 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.

Correction, 25 October 2026. No figure changed. Two sentences said more than they meant. The section on the accounts said the season the rule now measures was the title; the rule tests 2026/27, and the title was won in 2025/26, whose finish sets this season’s merit payment (Rule A.1.29(a)). And the comparison with Forest said the support from player trading runs in opposite directions; it lowers both clubs’ ratios, by 26.8 points and 4.3 points, so it is the size that differs. Both sentences now say so.

Correction, 26 October 2026. Arsenal’s ratio is unchanged at 60.1%. 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)). Arsenal’s own filed loan income, £0.5m for 2024/25 and £1.4m for 2023/24, now sits in the range, which is unchanged at one decimal place.

Correction, 28 October 2026. The ratio is 60.7%, from 60.1%, and 65.0% before player trading, from 64.4%. 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. Bruno Guimaraes’s contract runs to June 2030, not June 2031. He signed for four years with an option of a fifth, and an option is not part of the contract until it is taken up, so his fee is spread over a shorter contract (Rule A.1.22(c)). The squad cost is £479.8m, from £475.4m, and the headroom £192.4m, from £196.8m. The range is 57.5% to 64.7%, from 57.0% to 64.1%. Nottingham Forest’s figures, quoted for comparison, follow Forest’s correction of today: 97.4%, from 97.6%, on a squad cost of £259.6m, from £260.4m, so Arsenal’s squad costs 85% more, from 83%, in the description and the summary list as in the body.

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. Arsenal’s own ratio, 60.7%, 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. Arsenal’s ratio is unchanged at 60.7%. The loss for the year in the accounts table was given as £13.8m; the group’s loss for the year was £1.4m. £13.8m is its profit before tax excluding the impairment. Arsenal sit 24.3 points inside the green threshold, not 24.9, and the 92.7% comparison is 7.7 points above it, not 6.8. Arsenal spend 85% more on their squad than Forest, not 83%. The fee table was headed as Arsenal’s own record. Its figures come from a public season record, not from the club, and the article now says so. The label “revenue added by the rule” and the section heading on revenue the rule supplies are replaced, because Arsenal earned the merit by winning the league, and the article now separates it from the European amounts. The article said Arsenal made no sale carrying value in February to May 2024, which would not rule out a profit; it now says we found no sale with a profit or loss. The sentence that no club discloses its players’ wage bill now speaks only of Arsenal, and the player-share range is no longer described as under review. The article said only the base fee is capitalised until an add-on triggers; Arsenal’s accounts capitalise one once it becomes probable. It called the window the wrong unit; the rule counts windows, and the point is that an announcement list is not a complete ledger. The sources now list Rules A.1.29(g) and A.1.53. A section repeating the article’s points is removed.