Liverpool's squad cost ratio: £615m of signings, and not one of them grandfathered

Correction, 22 September 2026. The ratio is 71.5% and 79.0% before player trading, from 71.7% and 79.0%, after the 2025/26 disposal year was corrected from £141.5m to £146.3m in the series-wide fee sweep.

Update, 25 September 2026. Liverpool’s own figures are unchanged. Two references to Chelsea are brought up to date: Chelsea now hold nine grandfathered registrations carrying £320.3m, worth about three points, after Moisés Caicedo’s April 2026 extension brought his inside the cap; and Chelsea’s rebuilt figures give the expiry table quoted below.

Update, 26 September 2026. Chelsea’s figures in the comparison below, including its squad cost, its amortisation as a share of countable revenue, its largest single charge and its grandfathered registrations, are updated to its corrected reconstruction. Liverpool’s own figures are unchanged.

Corrections, 1 and 2 October 2026. The ratio is 70.6%, from 71.5%, and 77.8% before player trading, from 79.0%. Agents’ fees now use the FA’s published figure for Liverpool, £33.9m rather than an assumed £38m. Two players who have left were still being written down: Ibrahima Konaté had been recorded as costing nothing, and Diogo Jota’s book value, about £10.5m, stayed in the pool, although this article said his registration carried no 2026/27 squad cost. Both now leave it; Jota’s is treated as a write-off on his death. Ben Doak’s and Tyler Morton’s sales are taken at their base fees, £20m and £8.7m, and the book value of departed players is measured at Liverpool’s own year end, 31 May 2025. The squad cost is £557.8m and the three-year average of sale profit £73.2m. Green headroom is £113.6m, the range 67.3% to 74.1% and the stress case 80.1%. Caoimhín Kelleher and Stefan Bajcetic were bought young, for fees never established, rather than coming through the academy, which changes no figure. Chelsea now hold eight grandfathered registrations carrying £311.9m, after David Datro Fofana’s sale. The conclusion does not change: Liverpool are inside the green line before any sale profit is added.

Correction, 3 October 2026. The ratio is 69.6%, from 70.6%, and 76.6% before player trading, from 77.8%. 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. Liverpool played twelve (five, three and four), so the rule counts four, where we had assumed two. Re-estimated, by our method. Last season’s matchday receipts are not yet filed. We had carried £120.0m; the estimate is now £123.7m: the filed 2024/25 figure of £115.6m, scaled for the change in home matches (cup ties from 3 to 4 and European matches from 5 to 6), 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 £115.2m, from £103.4m. Also moved: the range is 66.4 to 73.0%, from 67.3 to 74.1%; green headroom is £123.6m, from £113.6m; and the stress case is 78.9%, from 80.1%. 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, 4 October 2026. The ratio is 73.9%, from 69.6%, and 81.4% before player trading, from 76.6%. 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 Liverpool’s last accounts we now count the reported fee plus 12%. Squad cost is £570.4m, from £557.8m, and the three-year average of sale profit is £71.6m, from £73.2m, 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. Liverpool’s accounts give no merchandise figure, so we estimate the cost of the goods from the clubs that do: £24.7m, in a range of £10.2m to £54.7m. 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 £4.0m for Liverpool, a figure with no calculation behind it. Rebuilt from Liverpool’s cup ties in the last three seasons and the FA’s published prize fund and broadcast fees, it is £0.8m, in a range of £0.7m to £7.4m. 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 £700.5m, from £728.4m. Also moved: the range is 70.5 to 77.7%, from 66.4 to 73.0%; green headroom is £85.9m, from £123.6m; the stress case is 83.5%, from 78.9%.

Correction, 5 October 2026. The ratio is 74.0%, from 73.9%, and 81.5% before player trading, from 81.4%. 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 Liverpool’s contract lengths change, 8 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 £213.2m, from £212.9m. The range is 70.6% to 77.8%, from 70.5% to 77.7%. 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. Liverpool’s own figures are unchanged. Chelsea’s figures in the comparison below are updated to its corrected reconstruction: its ratio is now 93.2%, from 94.3%, its squad cost £525.5m, from £531.5m, and its ratio before player trading 115.5%, from 116.8%, and its table on frozen costs now runs 93.2%, 96.5%, 102.7% and 115.5%. Its three-year average of sale profit, £108.9m, and that profit’s share of its denominator, 19.3%, are unchanged.

Update, 7 October 2026, second correction of the day. Liverpool’s own figures are unchanged. One comparison uses another club’s corrected figure: Arsenal’s amortisation is about 27% of the revenue the rule counts, from about 28%, because that revenue is now £743.8m, from £727.7m, with seven European home matches counted for Arsenal, where we had counted four.

Correction, 9 October 2026. The ratio is 72.9%, from 74.0%, and 80.1% before player trading, from 81.5%. Last season’s commercial revenue is now estimated by one published method, the same for every club. Liverpool’s 2025/26 accounts are not filed, so the figure is an estimate. We had £335.0m, a judgement of ours. It is now £346.5m: the £323.5m filed for 2024/25, grown by 7.1%, the rate the method gives a commercial income of that size (how we estimate last season’s commercial revenue). It is drawn between £288.6m and £398.9m, 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 69.0% to 77.7%, from 70.6% to 77.8%. The published ratio crosses no threshold. This article said Chelsea’s ratio before player trading was 115.5%, above the 115% red line; it now says 114.4%, 0.6 of a point below it, a margin that does not reliably tell which side it is on, with Chelsea’s ratio at 92.5%, from 93.2%, on the same method. The caveat said the commercial estimate carried a Champions League quarter-final; it now says the commercial estimate contains no specific allowance for that campaign. 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. A sentence sizing what the five-year cap would add at Chelsea is removed while that calculation is reviewed. 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 72.7%, from 72.9%, and 80.0% before player trading, from 80.1%. Liverpool’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: Levante are reported to pay all of Ifeanyi Ndukwe’s wage this season, a relayed report not confirmed by either club. Where nobody states the split, as for every other Liverpool loan, the saving only widens the range. The squad cost is £569.4m, from £570.6m; the range is 68.6% to 77.4%, from 69.0% to 77.7%; green headroom is £96.1m, from £94.9m; the stress case is 83.0%, from 82.4%. See the engine changelog.

Correction, 23 October 2026. Liverpool’s ratio is unchanged at 72.7%, and 80.0% before player trading. The figures this article gave for the 2028, 2029 and 2030 tests, 74.4%, 79.0% and 80.0%, are withdrawn while they are rechecked. The rule averages the profit or loss on player sales in the six most recent transfer windows (Rules A.1.13 and A.1.53), and the table took whole financial years out of the average instead. For the March 2027 test the two readings agree, because Liverpool made no sale between 2 February and 30 June 2024; for later tests they do not.

• Also changed: the comparison with Chelsea quoted that club’s forward figures, which are withdrawn too. It now gives the figure each club reaches with no sale profit at all: 80.0% for Liverpool, 114.4% for Chelsea.
• The argument stands: Liverpool are inside the line before any selling is counted, so the expiry of their trading support cannot take them over it. See the engine changelog.

Correction, 23 October 2026 (second of the day). The figures for the 2028, 2029 and 2030 tests are 74.4%, 79.0% and 80.0%, as the article first gave them, and the 2029 average is £8.9m, from £8.7m. Each row now averages the sales in the six transfer windows before its test (Rule A.1.53) rather than whole financial years; Liverpool made no sale between February and June 2025, and one small one between February and June 2026.

• Also corrected: the comparison with Chelsea had kept that club’s figures from before today’s earlier correction. Chelsea’s three-year average of sale profit is £133.5m, 22.5% of its denominator, where the table gave £108.9m and 19.2%; its squad cost is £528.5m, its ratio 89.1% and its ratio before player trading 115.1%, after Chelsea’s own correction today under Rule A.1.22(c). Chelsea’s table on the same arithmetic runs 89.1%, 96.2%, 100.6% and 115.1%.
• The argument stands: Liverpool are inside the line before any selling is counted, so the expiry of their trading support cannot take them over it. See the engine changelog.

Correction, 25 October 2026. The ratio is unchanged at 72.7%. The article said Liverpool hold no fee-bearing registration that predates the five-year cap’s cut-off of 12 December 2023. That is true of the three windows it reconstructs, not of the squad: players signed earlier sit in the £260.5m left of the filed book value, charged over their remaining contracts. Three sentences now say so. Chelsea’s amortisation is 57% of countable revenue, from 56%, a figure the second correction of 23 October changed in Chelsea’s article and missed in two sentences here. And the expiry table gave its part-year slices as February to June; Liverpool’s year ends on 31 May, so each slice runs from February to May, and the 2027 row now shows its slice, which holds no sales (Rule A.1.53). The table’s averages are unchanged.

Correction, 26 October 2026. Liverpool’s ratio is unchanged at 72.7%. 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)). Chelsea’s figures, quoted for comparison, follow Chelsea’s correction of today: the three-year average is £139.2m, from £133.5m, the ratio 88.3%, from 89.1%, and the table with no further selling runs 88.3%, 95.2%, 99.5% and 115.1%, from 89.1%, 96.2%, 100.6% and 115.1%.

Correction, 28 October 2026. Liverpool’s ratio is unchanged at 72.7%. 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. Chelsea’s figures, quoted for comparison, follow Chelsea’s correction of today: 88.6%, from 88.3%, and 115.4% before player trading, from 115.1%, on a squad cost of £529.9m, from £528.5m; Arsenal’s amortisation is 28% of its countable revenue, from 27%.

Correction, 31 October 2026. The ratio is 73.6%, from 72.7%; 80.0% before player trading is unchanged. Liverpool’s accounts print a lower sale profit than we had modelled. The accounts of UKSV Holdings to 31 May 2025 give £104.7m of profit on player sales from the year end to their approval on 22 September 2025 (note 26, printed page 39), where we had £132.5m, and we now use the filed figure (Rule A.1.13). Darwin Nunez’s sale fee is £46.0m, the EUR 53m guaranteed converted at the rate of the day, from £46.2m, with add-ons left out. Reece Trueman left when his contract expired in summer 2025, not 2026, and no figure moves with that. The three-year average of sale profit is £61.5m, from £70.8m, and the headroom to the 85% line is £88.2m, from £96.1m. Figures that follow from these are restated with them in the text, and the twenty clubs together come to 75.3%, from 75.1%. The correction does not reverse the article’s conclusion: Liverpool sit inside the line, and inside it before any selling is counted. It was not a change in the rules, or in what Liverpool filed: we modelled a figure the accounts print.

Correction, 2 November 2026. Liverpool’s ratio is unchanged at 73.6%. The correction of 31 October did not reach every table. The 2025/26 sale profit is £105.3m, from £133.1m, and the three-year average in the table is £61.5m, from £70.8m; the expiry table, which still printed £133.1m in two rows, now agrees with its own averages. Sale profit moves the ratio by 6.4 points, from 7.2, and across the four tests of the expiry table by 6.4, from about seven. Darwin Núñez’s fee is £46.0m where one sentence still said £46.2m. The Chelsea comparison is brought up to date: Chelsea’s three-year average is £121.4m, from £115.0m, its ratio 91.3%, from 92.3%, and its table with no further selling 91.3%, 97.5%, 100.0% and 115.4%, ending 0.4 points above the red line, from 0.1. Sale profit is 8.0% of Liverpool’s denominator, from 9.0%, and 20.9% of Chelsea’s, from 22.5%. The European derivation named the wrong rounds. Arsenal’s £99.9m came from a run to the semi-finals, not the final, and Liverpool reached the quarter-finals of the Europa League in 2023/24, not the round of 16; the £85.0m is not changed. The article now sets out the three amounts Rule A.1.29(e) compares. Grandfathering. “Liverpool hold none” is now limited to the three reconstructed windows, and the article says that Gakpo, Szoboszlai and Gravenberch were signed before the cut-off and have extended since. The chart note had the same fault. Ronald Araújo. The article said no purchase option was disclosed. Liverpool are reported to pay his wage in full, with no loan fee and a non-mandatory option at about €55m; the £9.5m remains our estimate. The label “revenue added by the rule” and the wording of revenue the rule supplies are replaced, because Liverpool earned the merit through their finishes. Also corrected. The 2025/26 figure is described as not yet filed: £104.7m disclosed in the accounts to 31 May 2025, plus our estimate of £0.6m. Chelsea’s average is no longer labelled all sale profit, because it includes a head-coach release. Profit on nil-cost players is the fee less 5%, not every pound received. The filed staff-cost line closes a year before Arne Slot left, so it cannot hold a termination payment to him; the article had called that unresolved. The sources now list Rule A.1.53. A section repeating the article’s points and a repeated explanation under the expiry table are removed.