Manchester United · Financial analysis

Manchester United's squad cost ratio: well inside the line, with a Champions League pay rise already written into the squad

Manchester United's squad cost ratio for the 1 March 2027 test comes out at 56.9%, well inside the 85% green threshold with roughly £218m of annual spending headroom. Measured before profit on player sales it is 59.8%, so United, unlike several of their peers, do not depend on selling to stay inside the line. The ratio is low because the rule credits a Champions League club with European revenue it has not yet earned, and because the payroll in the last filed accounts was set in two seasons without the Champions League. Reconstructed from the accounts of Red Football Limited, the group that holds the club and its football companies, and Appendix 2 of the Premier League Handbook.

By Arthur van de Laak20 September 2026Updated 2 November 2026 · View updates32 min read

Figures as of 31 October 2026, Orange Engine release V2CI · Latest figures · What the engine does not capture

Manchester United return to the Champions League in 2026/27 with a squad that costs £441m a year against £775m of revenue and averaged player-sale profit counted by the rule. That puts them at 56.9%, and it is low for reasons that sit mostly outside the club’s own trading.

The squad cost ratio compares what a club spends on its squad (wages, amortisation of transfer fees and agents’ fees) with the football revenue the rule counts plus a three-year average of profit on player sales. United’s squad costs £440.8m against £737.0m of countable revenue, which is 59.8% before any player trading, and the £38.2m three-year average of sale profit takes that to 56.9%.

• The squad cost is £440.8m: about £232.4m of wages, £187.0m of amortisation and about £21.4m of agents’ fees.
• Merit above the fifteenth-place floor and European amounts make up £148.8m of the revenue counted, including a £73.0m European reference amount in a season that follows one with no European football at all. Without them United would still be at 74.9% before player trading, and about 70.4% after it.
• The last filed payroll comes from 2024/25, a season without the Champions League. United’s player contracts are widely reported to carry a pay cut when the club is out of that competition, and the estimate here adds about £30m for its reversal.
• Garnacho’s £40m sale to Chelsea produced £38.0m of profit, while Antony’s £19.1m sale to Real Betis produced a £15.8m loss.

Taken together, the twenty clubs of this season’s Premier League come to 75.3% on the same basis; Manchester United’s 56.9% is below that. The full table for every club in the series is at Premier League SCR 2026/27.

What the accounts say

The rule tests a club together with its football companies. For Manchester United that group is Red Football Limited, which sits under Manchester United plc. It holds the club company, Manchester United Football Club Limited, the company that sells the club’s merchandise and licences (MU RAML Limited), the media company (MUTV) and the women’s club. This estimate reads Red Football Limited’s accounts for revenue and staff costs, and the club company’s for the registrations of the men’s squad. Both companies’ years run to 30 June, and the year to 30 June 2025 was the season of a 15th-place league finish and a run to the Europa League final.

The group’s turnover was £666.5m.

In the club company’s accounts, broadcasting fell £47.7m on the league finish and the step down from the Champions League to the Europa League, while matchday rose £23.0m on the extra home matches that the European run brought.

The group’s staff costs were £312.9m: wages and salaries £272.9m, social security £35.7m and pension £4.4m. A further £34.6m of termination costs, arising from two redundancy programmes and the departures of Erik ten Hag and football staff, sits in exceptional items and is excluded here. The group employed an average of 932 people, of whom 133 were men’s and women’s players, 164 technical and coaching staff, 129 in commercial roles, 82 in media and 424 in administration, and it also used about 2,238 temporary matchday staff whose cost is in the same line. The club company, which employs the men’s squad and the manager, reported £296.1m of staff costs and 758 employees, of whom 82 were players.

Amortisation of registrations was £192.5m and profit on player sales £48.6m, both in the club company’s accounts, which hold the men’s squad; the group’s profit on player sales was £48.7m, the figure the sales below use. The group’s loss before tax was £30.4m.

The transfer book runs heavily one way. In the club company’s accounts, £446.6m is owed to other clubs against £102.4m owed to United, and a further £135.7m of contingent fees could become payable, £95.6m of it on first-team players. The accounts also record that the company is in discussions with HMRC over a number of tax matters relating to arrangements with players and their representatives, and do not quantify any liability.

The registration note

The registrations are read from the club company’s accounts, which hold the men’s squad. The group’s note adds the women’s team’s registrations, £1.1m of book value.

The note shows disposals as a single net figure of £21.0m, so the cost removed and the amortisation released are derived from the opening and closing balances. The two derived figures differ by exactly the filed £21.0m, so the note balances.

Why the group, and what still comes from the club company

Earlier versions of this estimate were built on the club company alone, because its 82 players match the men’s squad. The rule tests a club together with its football companies, so the estimate is now built on the group the rule describes: Red Football Limited for 2024/25.

• Revenue is the group’s. Group turnover was £666.5m against the club company’s £600.7m, and almost all of the £65.9m difference is commercial income (£333.3m against £272.5m) earned in the merchandising and media companies rather than by the women’s team.
• Staff costs are the group’s, and the player wages are the same wages as before. The squad and the manager are employed by the club company. The wages estimated for them have not changed. They are now counted against the group’s staff costs of £312.9m, where they had been counted against the club company’s £296.1m.
• The registrations are the club company’s. They are the men’s squad. The group’s 133 players include the women’s team, which sits in a separate subsidiary.
• Merchandise counts at its profit. The rule counts merchandise at sales less the cost of the goods, so the group’s retail costs are taken off its commercial revenue.

On the club company alone the ratio would be about 59.0% (on the figures of 5 October 2026). That is shown as a sensitivity and is not the headline figure.

Rebuilding the ratio, before any selling

Wages, about £232.4m. The rule counts contract players and the head coach, and the accounts do not separate them from other employees. The squad and the manager are employed by the club company, and their share of its £296.1m of staff costs is estimated at 62 to 72%, centred on 67%, which gives about £198.4m for 2024/25. These are the same wages as before. Counted against the group’s staff costs of £312.9m, the same range is 58.7 to 68.1%, centred on 63.4%. A separate player-by-player salary estimate for that season comes to about £171.2m before employer’s National Insurance, or about 66.5% of the club company’s line once it is added, which sits inside that range.

That base then has to be carried forward to 2026/27, and at United the movement is unusually large, at about £34m:

• The summer 2025 window adds about £4.5m, as Matheus Cunha, Bryan Mbeumo, Benjamin Šeško and Senne Lammens replace Antony, Christian Eriksen, Victor Lindelöf, Jonny Evans and Alejandro Garnacho.
• The summer 2026 window takes out about £4m, because Casemiro’s departure alone removes about £18m and the incoming Andrey Santos, Youri Tielemans and Carlos Baleba cost less between them than Casemiro, Rasmus Højlund, Tyrell Malacia and Jadon Sancho did.
• The Champions League adds about £30m (range £20m to £40m). United’s player contracts are widely reported to reduce pay by around a quarter in seasons without the Champions League, a cut that applied in 2024/25 and 2025/26 and falls away in 2026/27, and qualification also triggers appearance bonuses.
• Marcus Rashford returns on full pay, about £6.5m more than United bore in 2024/25, when Aston Villa paid 75% to 90% of his wages for the second half of the season.
• André Onana and Altay Bayındır are out on loan at Trabzonspor and Celta Vigo, who are reported to pay all of their wages, which saves about £9.0m. United’s young players out on loan save something too, but nobody states how much of their wages the borrowing clubs pay, so that saving is allowed for in the range only.
• Contract renewals add a further £3m to £10m.

At about 17% of the base, that roll-forward is large for a squad whose two transfer windows roughly cancelled out on wages, because it is driven by a single contractual feature rather than by the transfer market. The accounts do not state the players’ wage bill, and this remains the largest single uncertainty in the reconstruction.

Amortisation, about £187.0m. This is the annual charge for writing off transfer fees over each player’s contract. For players signed since the last accounts, the cost written off is the reported fee plus 12%, which covers the League’s transfer levy, agents’ fees and the other costs of a signing that the rule counts.

• Registrations already on the books at 30 June 2025 carried £536.3m of book value. Antony, Casemiro, Højlund, Malacia and Sancho have since left, taking about £119.6m of it with them, and what remains produces about £116.3m a year. The accounts disclose only the next year’s charge on the existing book, so this figure rests on the contract lengths of the players who remain and is the second largest uncertainty.
• The 2025 signings add £34.8m: Šeško £15.2m, Mbeumo £14.7m, Lammens £4.2m and Diego León £0.7m, each on a contract to June 2030. Cunha, signed on 12 June 2025, was registered before the year end and is already inside the filed book value.
• The 2026 signings add £35.8m: Baleba £15.0m, Santos £10.8m and Tielemans £7.9m, all on contracts to June 2031, with Tynan Thompson, Kit Margetson and Cristian Orozco adding £2.1m between them.

Every player signed after the 30 June 2025 accounts is on a contract of five years or less, so the rule’s five-year cap on amortisation (Rule A.1.22(c)) does not touch them. It does reach four registrations already in the book value, signed or extended since 12 December 2023 for slightly more than five years: Patrick Dorgu, Cunha, Amad Diallo and Ayden Heaven. Charged over five years rather than over the contract, they add £0.6m, which is included above.

Agents’ fees, about £21.4m. The FA’s published figure for United’s payments to agents between February 2025 and February 2026 is £31.77m. Part of that is capitalised into registration costs and part is expensed, and the expensed share is estimated at 50 to 85%.

The squad therefore costs £232.4m plus £187.0m plus £21.4m, or £440.8m.

The revenue the rule counts

The rule builds revenue from the season just finished and the season under test rather than from the last set of accounts. Third place in 2025/26 sets the merit payment, commercial income is the 2025/26 figure, and the gate is the 2025/26 average per home match multiplied by the number of home matches expected in 2026/27, including four in the Champions League.

Commercial income for 2025/26 is estimated at £310.8m for the group, against £333.3m in the filed year. The estimate was made for the club company, at £250m against £272.5m filed, in a range of £240m to £262m: the training-kit sponsorship with Tezos ended before the season began, and the plc’s half-year results showed group commercial income down 4.5%. To that is added the £60.8m of commercial income earned outside the club company in 2024/25, held flat. The rule counts merchandise at gross profit, sales less the cost of the goods. The group prints its retail, merchandising and e-commerce costs, £36.6m in 2024/25, and the accounts of the retail company, MU RAML Limited, print a cost of inventories sold of £37.5m for the same year. We take the group’s £36.6m off, which leaves £274.2m.

Gate receipts for 2025/26 are estimated in the same way, at £153.2m on the group’s matchday line over 20 home matches, or about £7.66m a match. The plc has since printed the group’s figures for 2025/26. This article keeps the September estimates, and the update on the 2025/26 results tests them against the printed figures.

How much of the revenue rests on the rule’s own bases

Three parts of the calculation are set by the rule’s own bases: the merit payment above the fifteenth-place floor, which United earned by finishing third, the European reference amount, and the extra home gate that European matches bring.

The European line deserves a sentence of explanation, because United played no European football in 2025/26. Rule A.1.29(e) does not count what a club earned. For a club in a UEFA competition in the season under test, it counts the highest of three figures: the amount recognised from that competition in the prior season, the club’s three-year mean in that competition, and the estimated mean distribution for reaching its round of 16. United’s prior-season figure is nil and their three-year mean is low, so the round-of-16 reference binds, estimated at £73m.

Without the £148.8m the same cost base would produce 74.9% instead of 59.8%. That calculation leaves commercial income, the domestic gate and televised appearances unchanged, so it separates the merit and European amounts from the rest of United’s revenue. Even without them United would be inside the 85% line by about ten points.

Why similar transfer fees produce very different profits

The rule counts profit on player sales rather than sale proceeds. It adds 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. United’s average is £38.2m, worth 2.9 percentage points, and without it the club would sit at 59.8% rather than 56.9%.

Profit is the proceeds less the registration’s remaining book value, not the proceeds less the original fee. The 2025/26 summer shows the difference in two sales two days apart.

• Alejandro Garnacho went to Chelsea for £40m on 30 August 2025. He joined as a teenager for a nominal fee, so almost nothing was left on the books, and the sale produced about £38.0m of profit.
• Antony went to Real Betis for £19.1m on 1 September 2025. He cost £82.1m from Ajax in 2022 and still carried about £34.8m of book value, so the sale produced a loss of about £15.8m.

The group’s audited accounts put a figure on the summer as a whole. Between 30 June 2025 and the accounts’ approval the group disposed of registrations for £55.4m net of costs against £31.7m of book value, and a further £21.0m of sell-on and contingent fees from earlier sales fell due, which together give £44.7m of profit. Højlund’s permanent move to Napoli, at about £38m, added about £6.7m against his remaining book value. It is dated 17 May 2026, when Napoli’s Champions League qualification made the obligation in his loan unconditional; United announced it on 3 June, and he was registered in Italy on 29 June. The 2026 summer has so far produced £11.6m, mostly from the academy sales of Radek Vítek to Middlesbrough and Toby Collyer to West Bromwich Albion.

The contrast is with Manchester City, whose ratio before player-sale profit is 86.4%, 1.4 percentage points above the 85% line and too close for the estimate to say which side City are on. United’s does not rest on selling.

The squad, checked against the League’s own registers

The reconstruction was checked against the Premier League’s submitted senior and Under-21 squad lists of 12 September 2025 and 3 September 2026. The two returns name 105 players between them, and each is accounted for either as a registration on the books or as a departure. The check found one departure not in the club-sourced transfer record: Edward Ibrovic-Fletcher, on United’s Under-21 list in 2025 and on Leeds United’s in 2026.

What this doesn’t say

• That United’s ratio is exactly 56.9%. The range is 54.1 to 59.3%. Dating Højlund’s sale at his 29 June registration rather than the 17 May trigger would lower it by less than a tenth of a point, and it would still print 56.9%. United’s own accounts hint that they recognised the sale later, since the plc reported only £3.9m of disposal profit for April to June 2026, but this series dates an obligation when it becomes unconditional, not when a club books it. A contract to June 2029 rather than June 2030 for León would leave it at 56.9%.
• That the playing payroll is known. It is estimated at 62 to 72% of the club company’s £296.1m of filed employee cost, which is 58.7 to 68.1% of the group’s £312.9m, and the Champions League pay restoration rests on reported contract terms rather than on anything the accounts disclose.
• That the retail costs are beyond question. If none of the group’s retail costs could be taken off, the ratio would be about 54.3%. We take them off because the rule counts merchandise at its profit and the retail company’s own accounts print the cost of the goods it sold; those accounts are unaudited.
• That every line of the group’s revenue is counted. Subscription income from the club’s own media channel, £5.8m in 2024/25, sits in the group’s broadcasting line, outside its commercial figures, and is not counted here. If the rule counts it, the ratio would be about 0.4 points lower.
• That the perimeter is settled. The rule tests a club together with its football companies, and this estimate reads the group, Red Football Limited. On the club company alone the ratio would be about 59.0% (on the figures of 5 October 2026), and which companies the League places inside United’s perimeter is not public.
• That the loan fees are treated as the rule would treat them. The audited £44.7m for summer 2025 includes loan fees such as the reported €6m for Højlund’s season at Napoli. The rule sets a loan fee first against the loaned player’s own wages, then his amortisation, then agents’ fees (guidance to Rule A.1.29(g)), which in these cases exceed it, so the three-year average may be overstated by up to about £3m, worth about 0.2 points.
• That head-coach costs are fully captured. Ruben Amorim left in January 2026 and Michael Carrick took over, and any compensation sits outside the filed year. No separate head-coach cost has been added.
• Anything about United’s tax discussions with HMRC, which the accounts disclose without quantifying.

At United the Champions League is both a revenue credit under the rule and a pay rise written into the players’ contracts. In 2026/27 the first, £103.6m of European reference amount and European home gate, is larger than the second at about £30m, which is why the ratio has room. Both depend on qualification, so part of the room belongs to this season. Not all of it: measured at the fifteenth-place floor with no European amounts, the same cost base would be 74.9% before player trading, still inside the line.