Tottenham's squad cost ratio: £536m spent, and no European revenue to count

Correction, 20 September 2026. This article originally estimated Tottenham’s 2026/27 squad cost ratio at 86.4%. A subsequent review of the wage data attached to players joining, leaving and renewing contracts found that the projected squad payroll had been overstated by about £46.5m. Using the revised wage data reduces the estimated squad payroll from £282.7m to £236.2m, and the squad cost ratio from 86.4% to 78.8%.

The correction reverses this article’s original conclusion. Tottenham were described as above the 85% green threshold, and on the revised figures they are comfortably below it.

The treatment of Omar Marmoush is unchanged and is not the cause of the correction. Nor is the estimate of how much of the club’s staff-cost line is attributable to players, which is also unchanged.

Correction, 25 September 2026. Pierre-Emile Højbjerg’s sale to Marseille had been counted twice. It became permanent on 1 June 2025, inside Tottenham’s 2024/25 financial year, so its profit is already part of the £52.6m of player-sale profit in the filed accounts for that year; the reconstruction had counted it again, about £15.7m, in 2025/26. Removing the duplicate lowers 2025/26’s profit on player sales to about £55.1m and the three-year average from £84.1m to £78.9m, which moves the squad cost ratio from 78.8% to 79.5%.

The squad cost, the revenue and the before-trading figure are unchanged, and Tottenham remain comfortably inside the 85% green threshold. The comparison shares for Chelsea and Liverpool in the player-trading section have also been brought up to date. Chelsea’s share was updated again later the same day, to 20.4%, after Chelsea’s transfer record was rebuilt.

Correction, 26 September 2026. The ratio is 81.7%, from 79.5%, and 93.9% before player trading, from 91.3%. Two corrections move it in opposite directions. Kevin Danso’s registration sits inside the book value filed at 30 June 2025, as the club’s own accounts confirm, and is now charged once; Mathys Tel’s, listed in the accounts as a post-year-end signing, is dated 1 July 2025. That lowers amortisation to £220.2m. Separately, the wages of the two players Tottenham have on loan, Omar Marmoush and Mykhailo Mudryk, had not been counted, although this article said Tottenham bear them: an error in how the two loans were recorded kept about £20.0m out of the squad cost. Squad cost is now £498.0m, green headroom £19.9m, the range 78.9% to 84.9%, and the stress case 90.4%.

The second correction changes the article’s forward conclusion. On the stated forward assumptions, the ratio now crosses the 85% line at the 2027/28 test rather than in 2028/29, and it does so even without the Marmoush charge.

Corrections, 1 and 2 October 2026. The ratio is 79.4%, from 81.7%, and 89.0% before player trading, from 93.9%. Agents’ fees now use the FA’s published figure for Tottenham, £21.4m rather than an assumed £32m. Eight players Tottenham bought, among them Brennan Johnson, Cristian Romero and Son Heung-min, had been recorded as costing nothing; each is now carried at its acquisition cost, which lowers both amortisation and the profit on their sales. Manor Solomon joined on a free, Bryan Gil’s contract ran five years rather than six, and Alfie Devine is restored at the £0.3m he cost. The squad cost is £471.8m and the three-year average of sale profit £63.9m. Green headroom is £33.3m, the range 76.6% to 82.3% and the stress case 87.4%, and 0.5% of modelled outcomes land above 85%. The forward conclusion has changed: on the article’s stated assumptions the ratio stays inside the line at the 2027/28 test, at 84.6%, and first crosses it at 2028/29, at 86.2%, where before it crossed at 2027/28. Without the Marmoush charge, 2028/29 would be 84.4%.

Correction, 3 October 2026. The ratio is 77.6%, from 79.4%, and 86.7% before player trading, from 89.0%. 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. Tottenham played seven (two, three and two), so the rule counts three, where we had assumed two. Re-estimated, by our method. Last season’s matchday receipts are not yet filed. We had carried £118.0m; the estimate is now £128.7m: the filed 2024/25 figure of £126.5m, scaled for the change in home matches (cup ties from 3 to 2 and European matches from 7 to 5), 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 £108.9m, from £95.3m. We had cut Tottenham’s receipts by 7% for a shorter European run. The filed figures of clubs whose runs changed show that a shorter run costs much less than that, and less than a year’s price rises add. The forward conclusion has changed: on the article’s stated assumptions the ratio stays inside the line at the 2027/28 and 2028/29 tests, at 82.7% and 84.1%, and first crosses it at 2029/30, at 89.8%, where before it crossed at 2028/29. Also moved: the range is 74.9 to 80.5%, from 76.6 to 82.3%; green headroom is £44.9m, from £33.3m; and the stress case is 85.4%, from 87.4%. 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 82.1%, from 77.6%, and 91.7% before player trading, from 86.7%. 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 Tottenham’s last accounts we now count the reported fee plus 12%. Squad cost is £480.9m, from £471.8m, and the three-year average of sale profit is £61.3m, from £63.9m, 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. Tottenham’s accounts give the cost of the goods, and we take off £17.2m. 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 Tottenham, a figure with no calculation behind it. Rebuilt from Tottenham’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 £0.2m to £1.9m. 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 £524.5m, from £544.0m. Also moved: the range is 79.4 to 85.4%, from 74.9 to 80.5%; green headroom is £17.1m, from £44.9m; the stress case is 90.1%, from 85.4%; the chance that the ratio is above 85% is about 14%, from about 0%. The forward conclusion has changed: on the article’s stated assumptions the ratio crosses the 85% line at the 2027/28 test, at 87.7%, where before it first crossed at 2029/30. Without the Marmoush charge the 2027/28 figure would be 85.8%. The argument that wages alone could not take Tottenham to the line is weaker and has been rewritten: it would need players to be about 88% of the filed payroll, from about 99%, against the 76% to 86% the disclosures support.

Correction, 5 October 2026. The ratio is 82.3%, from 82.1%, and 92.0% before player trading, from 91.7%. 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 Tottenham’s contract lengths change, 15 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 £211.8m, from £210.3m. The range is 79.6% to 85.6%, from 79.4% to 85.4%. About 15% of our modelled outcomes are above the 85% line, from 14%. 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. This estimate counts the revenue of non-football events at the stadium in full, where the rule counts only their profit. The accounts print neither that revenue separately nor its cost, so the ratio is understated by an amount we cannot size.

Update, 7 October 2026. Tottenham’s own figures are unchanged. One comparison uses another club’s corrected figure: the revenue the rule supplies is worth £144.3m to Manchester City, from £139.9m.

Update, 7 October 2026, second correction of the day. Tottenham’s own figures are unchanged. One comparison uses another club’s corrected figure: the revenue the rule supplies is worth £147.1m to Manchester City, from £144.3m, because five European home matches are counted for City, where we had counted four.

Correction, 9 October 2026. The ratio is 80.4%, from 82.3%, and 89.7% before player trading, from 92.0%. Last season’s commercial revenue is now estimated by one published method, the same for every club. Tottenham’s 2025/26 accounts are not filed, so the figure is an estimate. We had £285.0m, a judgement of ours. It is now £298.3m: the £276.7m filed for 2024/25, grown by 7.8%, the rate the method gives a commercial income of that size (how we estimate last season’s commercial revenue). It is drawn between £244.3m and £350.6m, 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 76.4% to 85.6%, from 79.6% to 85.6%. About 13% of our modelled outcomes are above the 85% line, from 15%: the estimate does not reliably tell which side of the line Tottenham are on. The published ratio crosses no threshold. This article said that on its stated forward assumptions the ratio crossed the 85% line at the 2027/28 test, at 87.9%, and that the crossing did not turn on the Marmoush charge (85.9% without it) or on Mudryk’s wages (86.9% without them). That claim is withdrawn. The forward table holds this season’s revenue fixed and does not forecast next season’s commercial revenue; its central figure for 2027/28 is now 85.9%, within a point of the line (84.0% without the Marmoush charge, 84.9% without Mudryk’s wages), and the estimate cannot tell which side Tottenham would be on. This article also said that wages alone would carry Tottenham to the line only if players were about 87% of the filed payroll; it now says about 92%. 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 central figure is unchanged at 80.4%. Tottenham’s players out on loan are now recorded, but the saving on this season’s loans is held out for now: the club’s own wage figures for the summer already take some of it off, without saying how much, so counting it again could count it twice. Last season’s loans lowered the wages in the accounts we start from; nobody has said how much of those wages the borrowing clubs paid, so adding that saving back widens the range upward rather than moving the central figure. The assumption range is 76.6% to 85.8%, from 76.4% to 85.6%, and still spans 85%. The stress case, the worst case on costs alone, is 88.9%, from 88.3%. See the engine changelog.

Correction, 23 October 2026. This article estimated Tottenham’s ratio at 80.4%; the corrected figure is 80.9%, and 89.7% before player trading is unchanged. We had left out a loss of about £10.0m. The rule averages the profit or loss on sales in the six most recent transfer windows (Rules A.1.13 and A.1.53), and for the March 2027 test that period starts on 2 February 2024. We had averaged three financial years starting on 1 July 2024, so the end of Tanguy Ndombele’s contract by mutual consent on 30 June 2024, a year before it was due to expire, was left out. About £10m of what he cost was still on the books on this reconstruction; if Tottenham had already written some of it down, the loss is smaller. Nothing in Tottenham’s own figures changed; the error was in how we read the rule.

• Moved: the three-year average of sale profit is £58.6m, from £61.9m, worth 8.8 percentage points, from 9.3. Green headroom is £24.5m, from £27.3m. The range is 77.0% to 86.4%, from 76.6% to 85.8%, and still spans 85%. The stress case is 89.4%, from 88.9%. Sale profit is 9.8% of the denominator, from 10.3%.
• Later tests: the figures for the 2027/28 and 2028/29 tests, 85.9% and 87.3%, are withdrawn while they are rechecked, because they took whole financial years out of the average. The 2029/30 figure, with no sale profit left at all, is unchanged at 93.1%.
• Also corrected: the top of the range was given as 85.6% in one sentence and 85.8% elsewhere; it is 86.4% throughout.
• The twenty clubs together come to 74.9%, from 75.6%, and Chelsea’s sale profit is 22.5% of its denominator, from 19.2%. The lead chart and the cover are redrawn with these figures. See the engine changelog.

Correction, 23 October 2026 (second of the day). The 2027/28 central figure is 85.1%, where the withdrawn figure was 85.9%, on an average of £49.7m, from £44.4m. Each row now averages the sales in the six transfer windows before its test (Rule A.1.53) rather than whole financial years, so the 2027/28 test keeps Tottenham’s sales from February to June 2025, Pierre-Emile Højbjerg’s to Marseille among them. The 2028/29 figure is 87.3%, as before, and the 2029/30 figure 93.1%, unchanged.

• The conclusion of the forward section stands: the 2027/28 central figure is within a point of the 85% line, and the estimate cannot tell which side. Without the Marmoush charge it would be 83.2%, from 84.0%, and without Mudryk’s £6m 84.1%, from 84.9%. About £2.3m of fresh sale profit in the windows that test counts brings it to the line, where it was about £18m. See the engine changelog.

Correction, 25 October 2026. The ratio is unchanged at 80.9%. Five statements are corrected. The summary said the conclusion moved from above the line to comfortably below it; that was the position after the correction of 20 September, and the range now spans 85%. It said the staff structure is worth nearly four points of ratio; nothing in the article supports a size, so it now says only that it raises the wage estimate. It said Tottenham added eleven senior registrations in one summer; the club’s own record gives twelve permanent arrivals and two loans, and the table of what was bought counts registrations for a fee, as its heading now says. The sales table now carries the qualification the note of 23 October gives for Ndombele, and says why a contract that ends counts: the rule counts a loss when a registration ends with cost on the books (Rules A.1.13 and A.1.53). And the understatement from stadium events, given only in the note of 5 October, is now in the list of what this estimate does not say.

Correction, 25 October 2026 (second). No figure changed. The story of the wage revision of 20 September, the original estimate of £282.7m and 86.4% and the revised £236.2m and 78.8%, was told three times in the body: in the wage section, in the summary and in the sources. It is a record, and the note of 20 September carries it; the body now says only how the wage estimate is built.

Correction, 26 October 2026. Tottenham’s ratio is unchanged at 80.9%. 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 81.0%, from 80.9%; 89.7% before player trading is unchanged. 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. Djed Spence’s sale to Inter brought €31.5m guaranteed, £26.9m, not £30.0m. Up to €3.5m more depends on performance and counts only once it falls due (Rule A.1.29(g)). The three-year average of sale profit is £57.6m, from £58.6m, worth 8.7 points, from 8.8, and 9.7% of the denominator, from 9.8%. The headroom is £23.6m, from £24.5m; the range is 77.1% to 86.5%, from 77.0% to 86.4%; the stress case 89.5%, from 89.4%. The later tests move by one or two tenths of a point, the March 2028 test to 85.3%, from 85.1%. The wage-share passage had kept an earlier release’s figures: at the 86% top of the band the ratio is 83.2%, where the article said 82.6%, and wages alone would reach the line at about 90% of the payroll, where it said 92%, leaving about £25.0m for the non-playing staff, where it said £21.3m. Chelsea’s share of sale profit in its denominator, quoted for comparison, is 23.3%; the 22.5% printed before was from an earlier release.

Correction, 31 October 2026. The ratio is 80.9%, from 81.0%, and 89.5% before player trading, from 89.7%. We checked every transfer in our records against published sources and corrected the entries where a reputable report, read on the page, gives a different figure. Tosin Adarabioyo’s fee is £7.0m, the initial sum reported, not £10.0m. The range now runs 77.0% to 86.4%, from 77.1% to 86.5%, and still spans the 85% line. 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. It was not a change in the rules: our fee was too high.

Correction, 1 November 2026. Tottenham’s ratio is unchanged at 80.9%. The article called Omar Marmoush’s obligation to buy unconditional and the purchase certain. The terms are not public, and the first report said it applies if certain conditions are met. He stays a loan until the registration moves, and the £11.2m a year from 2027/28 is now described as a five-year case.

Correction, 2 November 2026. Tottenham’s ratio is unchanged at 80.9%. The corrections of 28 and 31 October did not reach every table. In the sales table 2026/27 is £103.3m, from £106.2m, because Djed Spence’s fee is £26.9m, not £30m, and the average it prints is £57.6m, from £58.6m; the text already said £57.6m. In the amortisation table the summer 2026 signings are £70.8m, from £71.7m, because Tosin Adarabioyo’s fee is £7.0m, not £10.0m; the four lines now add to the £211.0m charge. For the same reason the summer 2026 window is £311.5m, from £314.5m, the club’s own figure, and the three windows £536m, from £539m, in the title, the summary and the table of what was bought. The 2029/30 figure is 92.9%, as the table printed, where the text said 93.1%, and about £2.2m of fresh profit, not £2.3m, brings the 2027/28 figure to the line. Chelsea’s sale profit is 20.9% of its denominator, from 20.0%, and the article now says its average includes a head-coach release. Added: the Marmoush section gives the charge over the contract terms reported, to 2030 or 2031, which would put the 2027/28 figure at 86.4% or 85.6%, and the ratio if the purchase were recognised from the start of the loan, about 82.5% to 82.9%. The sales table gives the impairments in the 2022/23 and 2023/24 accounts, which may include Tanguy Ndombele’s registration; at a loss of nil the ratio would be 80.4%. The wage section dates its headcount: the 335 is an average for the year to June 2025, and the return of 7 February 2025, inside that year, carries 86 players. The stadium-events caveat names the line the events sit in, £77.3m of other revenue, and the event costs, about £29m, that would take the central figure to the line. Also corrected. The label “revenue added by the rule” is replaced, because Tottenham earned their merit with fifth place in 2023/24. The article said no club discloses its players’ wages; it now says Tottenham do not. A section repeating the article’s points is removed. Also qualified. The merit payment falls to the floor at the next test only if Tottenham finish below 14th this season. Under the reported contract terms for Marmoush, the fresh sale profit needed to bring 2027/28 to the line is about £12m or £29m, not £2.2m. The 76% to 86% player share of payroll is an assumption: the squad returns and the employment note count different populations, and the rule also counts the head coach’s pay. The filed staff-cost line closes before Thomas Frank left, so it cannot hold a payment to him; the article had called that unresolved. The Marmoush charge from 2027/28 is described as our assumed timing, not a known outcome, and the article no longer says a conditional obligation creates no cost until it triggers: UEFA’s rules recognise one from the start where the condition is virtually certain. The assumption range makes no allowance for stadium event costs. The cover is dated 2 November 2026, where its description said 23 October.

Update, 2 November 2026 (second of the day). Tottenham’s ratio is unchanged. The case in which Omar Marmoush’s obligation would be treated as a purchase from the start of his loan, putting about £10m to £12m into this season and the ratio at about 82.5% to 82.9%, is withdrawn. He is carried as a loan in 2026/27 and a purchase in 2027/28, and the length of his contract is taken when it is announced. Manchester City’s article withdraws the matching case.

Correction, 3 November 2026. The ratio is 80.4%, from 80.9%, in a range of 76.6% to 85.8%, from 77.0% to 86.4%. Tanguy Ndombele’s contract ended by agreement on 30 June 2024, a year earlier than we had recorded, so the loss on ending it is smaller. The figure before player trading is unchanged at 89.5%.