Sunderland · Financial analysis
Sunderland's squad cost ratio: seventh place does the heavy lifting
Sunderland's squad cost ratio for the 1 March 2027 test comes out at 60.5%, inside the 85% green threshold with roughly £65m of annual headroom. Measured before profit on player sales it is 67.2%. The last filed accounts are from a Championship season, so the wage bill is estimated player by player, and £50m of the revenue counted is merit earned by last season's seventh place and the amounts the rule sets for this season's Europa League. Reconstructed from The Sunderland Association Football Club Ltd's accounts and Appendix 2 of the Premier League Handbook.
Figures as of 31 October 2026, Orange Engine release V2CI · Latest figures · What the engine does not capture
SCR 2026/27·Post-summer projection
Latest change to the figures, 31 October 2026: the ratio is 60.5%, from 61.2%, because four fees are corrected. Latest correction, 2 November 2026: the amortisation and loan lines and the 85.1% comparison, with no figure in the ratio changed; a later note that day corrects when the next accounts are due. All 15 correction notes are at the end.
Sunderland last filed accounts for a Championship season that ended with promotion through the play-offs. Their 2026/27 squad has been rebuilt from those accounts and from a player-by-player estimate of what the current squad is paid.
| Sunderland | 2026/27 |
|---|---|
| Squad cost ratio, 1 March 2027 test | 60.5% |
| SCR before player trading | 67.2% |
| Merit above the floor and European amounts | 17.9 percentage points |
| Effect of player-sale profits | 6.7 percentage points |
| Green headroom | +£64.9m |
| Assumption range | 56.3 to 64.4% |
| Assumption range against 85% | entirely below the line |
| Stress case (costs only) | 67.9% |
The squad costs £160.5m against £238.7m of the football revenue the rule counts, which is 67.2% before any player trading. The three-year average of profit on player sales, £26.4m a year, takes the figure to 60.5%.
- The squad cost is £160.5m: £84.4m of wages, £66.2m of amortisation, £7.2m of agents’ fees and £5.3m for Kevin Danso, on loan from Tottenham, less £2.6m that Ajax pay to borrow Simon Adingra.
- The wage figure is a separate estimate of what each player in the 2026/27 squad is paid, because the last filed payroll is a Championship one.
- Merit above the fifteenth-place floor and European amounts make up £50.1m of the revenue counted, earned by last season’s seventh place and this season’s Europa League: 17.9 points of ratio. Without them the ratio would be 85.1% before player trading and about 74.6% after it.
- Among the clubs promoted in 2025, Sunderland sit below Leeds, whose ratio is 68.6%. Most of the difference is there before any sale profit is counted: the two are about 6 points apart (67.2% against 72.9%), and player trading adds about 2 more.
Taken together, the twenty clubs of this season’s Premier League come to 75.4% on the same basis; Sunderland’s 60.5% is below that. The full table for every club in the series is at Premier League SCR 2026/27.
What the accounts say
The Sunderland Association Football Club Ltd files accounts for the club company alone, to 31 July, not 30 June. The group accounts are prepared by its immediate parent, Sunderland Limited, which owns the Stadium of Light and rents it to the club for £2.0m a year. The player registrations sit in the club company, so the figures that matter here come from its own filing.
The year to 31 July 2025 was the promotion season. Turnover was £39.4m: £13.0m of gate receipts, £12.0m of television and league distributions, and £14.4m of commercial income. Staff costs were £52.9m, up £22.4m on the year, largely because of promotion bonuses, across 72 football staff and 248 administrative staff. The accounts do not split the 72 between players and coaches.
The July year end matters for two reasons.
- It captures most of the 2025 summer spending. Enzo Le Fée, Habib Diarra, Noah Sadiki, Chemsdine Talbi, Simon Adingra and Granit Xhaka all joined before 31 July, for £124.6m in named fees. Player registrations rose from £11.7m to £147.6m of book value in a single year, and the charge for writing them off, £10.4m in 2024/25, rises steeply from here.
- It captures sales made in June and July. Profit on player sales was £45.8m, mostly Jobe Bellingham’s move to Borussia Dortmund in June 2025 and Tom Watson’s to Brighton. That filed year is the first of the three the rule averages.
The accounts also record £47.3m of transfer fees owed, net, on business agreed after the year end, and up to £36.4m of further fees that depend on future events.
Why the wage bill is estimated player by player
For most clubs in this series, the players’ wages are estimated as a share of the filed staff cost, then moved forward through the transfer windows since the accounts date. At Sunderland that route would mostly measure the promotion, not the payroll. The £52.9m is a Championship bill that includes promotion bonuses and pays 248 administrative staff. Turning it into a Premier League squad payroll two seasons later would need an adjustment too large for the filed figure to anchor.
This reconstruction therefore estimates the 2026/27 wage bill directly, player by player, and uses the filed figure only as a check.
- The permanent squad, about £61.5m a year of fixed salary. That is the 27 players registered with Sunderland on the Premier League’s 2026/27 squad returns. Two published wage sources were compared for each and the midpoint taken. They disagree most at the top: Xhaka is put at £8.6m a year by one and £6.0m by the other. Across the squad, the two sources bracket the total at £54.5m to £68.5m.
- Three senior players out on loan, Adingra, Jenson Seelt and Milan Aleksić, earn about £3.9m between them. The borrowing clubs’ share is not published, so half is assumed.
- Academy and fringe professionals about £1.1m, the head coach about £2.7m (Régis Le Bris is a relevant person under the rule), and an allowance of 10% on player pay for appearance, European and league-position bonuses.
That comes to £73.7m of gross pay. Employer social security and pension, at 14.5%, take it to £84.4m (£73.7m × 1.145; the range around the build is symmetric, so its midpoint adds nothing), with a range of about £71m to £98m once the disagreement between the wage sources is allowed for.
As a check, £84.4m is about 1.6 times the £52.9m Championship staff bill. That is the right direction for a club that bought a new Premier League squad in one summer, but the filing cannot confirm the estimate. The wage figure is the largest single uncertainty in this reconstruction.
Rebuilding the rest of the ratio
Amortisation, £66.2m. A transfer fee is spread over the length of the player’s contract, measured from the day he was registered to the day the contract ends. The rule counts each year’s share, capped at five years per contract. For players signed since the last accounts, the cost that is spread is the reported fee plus 12%, for the League’s transfer levy, agents’ fees and the other costs of a transfer; the fees quoted below are the reported ones. There are four parts.
- Registrations on the books at 31 July 2025: £34.3m. Their £147.6m of book value, less about £3.7m belonging to players who have since left, is spread over the roughly four years those contracts have left.
- Signings from August 2025: £11.8m. Brian Brobbey (£17.3m, on a five-year contract), Nordi Mukiele (£9.5m) and Omar Alderete (£10.4m), both on four-year contracts, and Robin Roefs (£11.5m). Roefs extended to 2031 on 28 August 2026, so the remaining carrying value is re-spread over the revised term, subject to the rule’s five-year cap.
- January 2026: £5.5m. Nilson Angulo (£15.0m), Jocelin Ta Bi and Melker Ellborg.
- Summer 2026: £14.6m.
- Malick Fofana, taken at a €30m (about £25.7m) base fee, and Dayann Methalie, taken at his £24.0m guaranteed fee. Both are carried on five-year terms; add-ons are left out until they are due.
- Juan Riquelme Angulo (about £5m, on a five-year contract).
- Jules Ahoka (£8.6m, on a five-year contract to 2031).
Agents’ fees, about £7.2m, expensed. The FA publishes £10.6m paid by Sunderland to agents in the year to February 2026, part of which is capitalised into the cost of signings rather than expensed.
Loan players, a net £2.7m.
- Danso costs about £5.3m: £2.8m in wages on the share Sunderland are assumed to bear, and the £2.5m loan fee paid to Tottenham.
- Ajax pay a loan fee for Adingra, carried at about £2.6m. Under the rule a fee received on a loan first offsets that player’s wages and amortisation at the lending club, so it reduces Sunderland’s squad cost rather than adding to revenue. Reports differ on what Ajax pay: one puts the loan fee alone at over €3m, while Dutch reports put €3.8m on the fee and his salary together. The estimate counts the £2.6m on top of the half of his wages it assumes Ajax pay, and offsets it against Sunderland’s half once. If the €3.8m covers both, Ajax’s contribution is about £0.9m smaller than counted here, and the ratio about 60.9%.
Revenue the rule counts, £238.7m.
| Revenue for the test | Basis | £m |
|---|---|---|
| Central funds excluding facility fees | equal share plus merit for seventh | 152.7 |
| Facility fees | 22 televised appearances | 15.5 |
| Commercial | a provisional estimate of 2025/26 income, not yet filed, plus the women’s team’s turnover of £0.9m | 33.6 |
| Gate | estimated 2025/26 income per match, 19 league, 2 cup and 4 Europa League home games | 18.8 |
| European prize money | Europa League round-of-16 reference | 17.0 |
| Domestic cups and academy grant | cup income rebuilt from three seasons of cup ties, provisional | 1.1 |
| Total | 238.7 |
The commercial figure is a provisional estimate. The 2025/26 accounts are not filed, and the estimate comes from one published method, the same for every club (how we estimate last season’s commercial revenue): the £14.4m filed for 2024/25, a Championship season, raised by 127.4%, the middle of nine promotions read in filed accounts, plus the women’s team’s £0.9m. That is £33.6m, drawn between £25.8m and £43.5m, the smallest and largest of those nine changes. It stays provisional until the 2025/26 accounts are filed. The 2024/25 base includes £7.6m of conference and banqueting income at its gross figure, and the estimate grows it with the rest. The rule counts conference centres at or near the stadium at net profit (Rule A.1.19(c)(ii)); the accounts do not give the costs of that business, so no adjustment is made, and to the extent the line is conference income the revenue counted here is too high and the ratio too low.
Sunderland are not a promoted club for this test, because they were in the Premier League in 2025/26. So the ordinary limbs of the rule apply, and three of them work in Sunderland’s favour.
- Merit is taken at the best of last season’s finish, the three-year mean and the fifteenth-place floor. The two earlier seasons were in the Championship. The rule does not say how a season outside the League enters the mean; left out or counted below twentieth, it cannot improve on seventh, so seventh place sets it. That is eight places above the floor, worth £30.1m.
- European prize money is taken at the highest of three figures: what the club received from the same competition last season, its three-year average in that competition, and an estimate of the average paid to a round-of-16 club. Sunderland have no prior-season Europa League distribution and no three-year average in the competition, so the round-of-16 reference sets the amount at £17.0m. That is what the rule credits, whatever happens in the league phase.
- The gate limb adds the four guaranteed Europa League home matches at last season’s average takings per match, about £3.0m.
Together those three come to £50.1m, or 17.9 percentage points of ratio. Without them, and before player trading, the ratio would be 85.1%, just above the 85% line; with the sale-profit average still counted it would be about 74.6%. Sunderland earned the merit by finishing seventh, and their margin inside the green line owes as much to that finish as to the squad’s cost.
The facility fee is not published club by club. Sunderland were shown live in the UK 22 times in 2025/26. The £15.5m used here is what remains of their reported total Premier League payment of £168.2m once the equal share and the merit payment are taken out.
What player trading does to it
The rule 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; Sunderland made no sale carrying value between then and the start of their 2024/25 year on 1 August 2024, so the three financial years below are the whole of it.
| Financial year (to 31 July) | Profit, £m | What produced it |
|---|---|---|
| 2024/25 | 45.8 | filed. Bellingham to Dortmund, Watson to Brighton |
| 2025/26 | 24.3 | Eliezer Mayenda to Rennes for £22m on 5 July 2026, before the year end; the small sales of August 2025 are taken at the £1.5m profit the accounts disclose |
| 2026/27 to date | 9.2 | Anthony Patterson to Wrexham for £8m, an academy goalkeeper with no book value, and smaller sales |
| Three-year average | 26.4 | the figure the rule counts |
£160.5m divided by £238.7m plus £26.4m gives 60.5%.
Profit is the fee less what remains on the books, which is why academy graduates matter so much here. Mayenda cost Sunderland little and Patterson nothing, so almost all of their £30m came through as profit. At the March 2028 test most of 2024/25 leaves the average, but not all of it. The rule counts by transfer window (Rule A.1.53), and the sales of February to July 2025, Bellingham’s, Watson’s and Bennette’s, about £34.9m of profit, fall in a later window and stay in for one more test. On the sales known so far the average at that test is about £22.8m.
The loan with an obligation to buy
Danso joined from Tottenham on loan. Tottenham’s announcement describes an obligation, subject to performance-related conditions, to make the move permanent next summer, and reports put it at £22.5m if Sunderland stay in the Premier League. Whether the conditions will be met cannot be judged from outside, and the accounting differs with the answer. UEFA’s rules recognise a conditional obligation from the start where the condition is virtually certain, and otherwise when it triggers; how the Premier League classifies one is not settled. The central figure treats him as a loan; the table gives the case in which he is a permanent signing.
| Danso treated as | SCR |
|---|---|
| a loan | 60.5% |
| a permanent signing, five-year contract | 62.5% |
| a permanent signing, four-year contract | 63.0% |
Either contract is measured as every other is, from the day he was registered, 1 September 2026, to the 30 June that length points to: 4.83 years or 3.83. The headline retains the loan treatment because the conditions that activate the obligation cannot be established from public evidence. Tottenham’s own reconstruction likewise keeps his registration, and its amortisation, at Tottenham.
How the owners fund it
- Owner-side loans rather than equity. The accounts carry £19.8m owed to the ultimate parent, Mercator Investments, owned 64% by Kyril Louis-Dreyfus and 34% by Juan Sartori. They also carry £25.2m owed to Akira BV, a Louis-Dreyfus family company, at a commercial rate of interest. That loan is secured by first legal mortgages over the Academy of Light.
- Security over league money. Charges registered at Companies House in October 2025, February 2026 and July 2026 give Macquarie security over Sunderland’s Premier League central distributions. The most recent covers payments from August 2026 to June 2030. The amounts advanced are not disclosed.
- Transfer fees on instalments. At 31 July 2025, Sunderland owed £70.8m in transfer fees, most of it due after more than a year, and were owed £27.3m. The £47.3m of net business agreed after the year end came on top.
What this doesn’t say
- That Sunderland’s ratio is exactly 60.5%. The published range is 56.3 to 64.4%, and most of that width is the wage estimate. Commercial and gate income for 2025/26 add a spread of about 58% to 63% at the ends of the ranges they are drawn from. The Europa League reference moves the figure between about 59% and 61%, and the Danso branch reaches 63.0%. If Ajax’s €3.8m covers Adingra’s wages as well as the fee, the figure is about 60.9%.
- That the model is a statement about the world. The assumption range, 56.3% to 64.4%, sits entirely below 85%. It depends on the input bounds used here, and it excludes the possibility that the reconstruction is wrong in a way those ranges do not describe. The stress case, the worst case on costs alone, with every uncertain cost input set against the club at once and revenue held at the central estimate, is 67.9%.
- That the wage figure matches Sunderland’s books. It is a player-by-player estimate, checked against the Premier League’s squad returns and a Championship filing, not a disclosed figure. The accounts to 31 July 2026, due by 30 April 2027, will be the first Premier League payroll Sunderland have filed since 2017.
- Anything about the profitability and sustainability rules, which are a separate test.
Sources and caveats.
The accounts. The Sunderland Association Football Club Ltd company accounts for the year to 31 July 2025, signed 22 December 2025 and filed at Companies House. The club is consolidated by its immediate parent, Sunderland Limited; the player registrations sit in the club company. The women's team's company, Sunderland Association Football Club Women Limited, is inside Sunderland Limited's group accounts and is counted, as the rule tests a club together with its football companies. Registered charges in favour of Akira BV and Macquarie. The FA's agent-fee table for February 2025 to February 2026.
The rules applied. Premier League Handbook 2026/27, Appendix 2, in particular Rules A.1.13, A.1.22, A.1.29 including (a), (b), (c), (d), (e) and (g), and A.1.53. Sunderland are not a Promoted Club for 2026/27.
What is estimated, and why.
- Player wages, about £84.4m including employer costs. The last filed accounts are from a Championship season and include promotion bonuses, so the 2026/27 wage bill is estimated player by player from two published wage sources, with the filed staff cost used as a check. The share of loaned-out players' wages paid by the borrowing clubs is not published, and half is assumed.
- 2025/26 commercial (£33.6m, a provisional estimate under the method we use for every club, of which £0.9m is the women's team's turnover in 2024/25) and gate (£15.0m, before the European home games) income, because those accounts are not yet filed. Together they move the ratio between about 58% and 63% at the ends of the ranges they are drawn from. The rule counts merchandise at gross profit; Sunderland's accounts do not hold merchandise at sales value as far as we can tell (they do not say so in terms), so nothing is taken off the commercial figure.
- The facility fee, £15.5m on 22 televised appearances, is derived from the club's reported total Premier League payment; the League does not publish the split.
- The Europa League round-of-16 reference, £17.0m, is reconstructed from UEFA's published distribution structure and applied to every club in that competition.
- Amortisation of registrations held at July 2025 is estimated from the filed book value, less the players who have since left, over an estimated remaining life of about four years.
Transfers and loans. Fees are taken at the reported base where a base and add-ons are separately reported: Fofana at €30m rather than the £31m package, and Methalie at £24.0m rather than £25.7m. Ahoka's five-year term to 2031 was reported on the day the club announced the signing. The fees for several smaller sales were undisclosed and are estimated; together they move the average by well under a point. Adingra's move from Brighton completed on 10 July 2025, before Sunderland's year end, so he is part of the July 2025 book value. Danso's loan carries an obligation to buy subject to performance-related conditions, as Tottenham describe it, and is shown both ways.
Completeness. The playing population was checked against the Premier League's 2025/26 and 2026/27 senior and Under-21 squad returns, with 97 identities classified and none unresolved, and all three windows since the accounts date were rebuilt from the club's own announcements.
Methodology. The Orange Engine sets out the population checks, transaction reconciliation, uncertainty ranges and cross-club controls behind these estimates.
Independent estimate, not an official calculation, and not advice. Data and calculations updated 24 September 2026; corrected 2 October, 4 October, 5 October, 9 October, 23 October, 24 October, 25 October, 26 October, 28 October, 31 October and 2 November 2026.
Corrections and updates (15)
27 September 2026 · Data correction · figures not recorded
Update, 27 September 2026. Sunderland’s figures are unchanged. The comparison with Leeds now uses Leeds’ current figure, 64.6%, after a sourced transfer fee replaced an earlier rounded one there.
2 October 2026 · Data correction · SCR 61.5% → 61.6% · before player sales 68.7% → 68.7%
Correction, 2 October 2026. The ratio is 61.6%, from 61.5%, and 68.7% before player trading is unchanged. The book value of the players who have left is now measured at Sunderland’s own year end, 31 July 2025, and the signings of Nectarios Triantis, Nazariy Rusyn and Leo Hjelde are dated from the clubs’ announcements. The change is about two hundredths of a point, but the figure sat just below a rounding line, so it now prints 61.6%. The Danso branch on a four-year contract is 63.8%, and the comparison with Leeds uses Leeds’ current 64.8% and 68.5%. The conclusion does not change: Sunderland are well inside the green threshold.
4 October 2026 · Methodology change · SCR 61.6% → 63.2% · before player sales 68.7% → 70.6%
Correction, 4 October 2026. The ratio is 63.2%, from 61.6%, and 70.6% before player trading, from 68.7%. 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 Sunderland’s last accounts we now count the reported fee plus 12%. Squad cost is £159.8m, from £156.4m, and the three-year average of sale profit is £26.4m, from £26.5m, 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. Sunderland’s accounts do not hold merchandise at sales value as far as we can tell (they do not say so in terms), so nothing is taken off. 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 £1.5m for Sunderland, a figure with no calculation behind it. Rebuilt from Sunderland’s cup ties in the last three seasons and the FA’s published prize fund and broadcast fees, it is £0.2m, in a range of £0.2m to £0.7m. 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 £226.3m, from £227.6m. Also moved: the range is 59.1 to 67.3%, from 57.4 to 65.5%; green headroom is £55.0m, from £59.6m; the stress case is 71.4%, from 69.7%.
5 October 2026 · Methodology change · SCR 63.2% → 63.4% · before player sales 70.6% → 70.7%
Correction, 5 October 2026. The ratio is 63.4%, from 63.2%, and 70.7% before player trading, from 70.6%. 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. 21 of Sunderland’s contract lengths change, 7 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 £67.9m, from £67.0m. The range is 59.2% to 67.4%, from 59.1% to 67.3%. No threshold is crossed. We now count the women’s team. Its company, Sunderland Association Football Club Women Limited, is inside the group accounts of Sunderland Limited, the club’s parent. The rule tests a club together with its football companies and counts the women’s team’s revenue as commercial revenue. Its turnover was £0.9m in 2024/25, and that is now added to the revenue the rule counts, which is £227.2m, from £226.3m. On the contract change alone the ratio would be 63.6%. The contract that Kevin Danso’s obligation would create is now measured in the same way, so that what-if is 65.4% on a five-year contract and 65.9% on four, from 65.2% and 65.7%; on the contract change alone it would be 65.6% and 66.1%, and the women’s team’s revenue is the difference. 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.
9 October 2026 · Methodology change · SCR 63.4% → 60.8% · before player sales 70.7% → 67.5%
Correction, 9 October 2026. The ratio is 60.8%, from 63.4%, and 67.5% before player trading, from 70.7%. Last season’s commercial revenue is now estimated by one published method, the same for every club. Sunderland’s 2025/26 accounts are not filed, so the figure is an estimate. We had £22.9m, a judgement of ours. It is now £33.6m, a provisional promoted-class estimate: the £14.4m filed for 2024/25, a Championship season, raised by 127.4%, the middle of nine promotions we have read in filed accounts, plus £0.9m for the women’s team, added as before (how we estimate last season’s commercial revenue). It is drawn between £25.8m and £43.5m, the smallest and largest of those nine changes, where we had drawn 7% either way. It stays provisional until the 2025/26 accounts are filed. The range is 56.6% to 64.7%, from 59.2% to 67.4%. The published ratio crosses no threshold. This article said that most of the difference between Sunderland and Leeds is player trading, the two being 0.5 points apart before any sale profit (70.7% against 71.2%); it now says that most of the difference is there before any sale profit is counted, the two being about 5 points apart (67.5% against 72.6%), and that player trading adds about 3 more. This article said that without the revenue the rule adds for seventh place and the Europa League the ratio would be about 91%; it now says about 86%. 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.
15 October 2026 · Editorial · no change to the ratio
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.
16 October 2026 · Assumption revision · no change to the ratio
Updated 16 October 2026: loans out now recorded; wage relief shown in ranges. Sunderland’s own figures do not move: its players out on loan are recorded, but its wage estimate is built player by player for this season’s squad, so no separate allowance is added. The twenty clubs taken together now come to 75.6%, from 75.8%. See the engine changelog.
23 October 2026 · Data correction · SCR 60.8% → 60.6% · before player sales 67.5% → 67.3%
Correction, 23 October 2026. This article estimated Sunderland’s ratio at 60.8%; the corrected figure is 60.6%, and 67.3% before player trading, from 67.5%. Rule A.1.29(d)(ii) counts gate income for the average number of home F.A. Cup and EFL Cup matches over the three previous seasons, rounded up. We count a tie only when a published report of it has been archived, and Sunderland’s FA Cup third-round tie against Stoke City on 11 January 2025 had none: the club’s own page showed only a consent banner. A Press Association report of the match has now been captured. That makes four home cup matches over three seasons, an average of two where it was one, and the gate limb is £18.8m, from £18.0m. The revenue the rule counts is £238.7m.
- Moved: green headroom is £64.7m, from £64.0m. The range is 56.4% to 64.5%, from 56.6% to 64.7%; the stress case is 68.4%, from 68.6%. Treating Danso as a permanent signing gives 62.6% over five years and 63.1% over four, from 62.8% and 63.3%.
- Unchanged: the conclusion. The lead chart and the cover are redrawn. See the engine changelog.
- Also corrected: the comparison with Leeds gave Leeds’ ratio as 68.6%; it has been 68.3% since Leeds’ correction of 23 October (Rule A.1.53), so player trading adds about 2 points to the gap between the clubs, not 3.
24 October 2026 · Methodology change · no change to the ratio
Correction, 24 October 2026. On the sales known so far, the sale-profit average at the March 2028 test is about £22.8m, from about £11m. The ratio for this season’s test, 60.6%, is unchanged. The article said the whole of 2024/25’s £45.8m leaves the average after this test. The rule averages the sales of the six most recent transfer windows (Rules A.1.13 and A.1.53), and a financial year’s sales from February onwards fall in a later window than the rest of that year, so they stay in for one test longer. For Sunderland, whose year ends on 31 July, that keeps about £34.9m of profit from February to July 2025 in the March 2028 test: Bellingham’s sale to Borussia Dortmund, taken at the fixed fee of €33m, about £27.8m, Watson’s to Brighton and Bennette’s to LNZ Cherkasy.
25 October 2026 · Regulatory interpretation · no change to the ratio
Correction, 25 October 2026. The ratio is unchanged at 60.6%. The article said the July year end pulls Eliezer Mayenda’s sale into 2025/26 and that at a club with a June year end it would have counted in 2026/27. For the March 2027 test it makes no difference: the rule counts the sales of six transfer windows (Rule A.1.53), and Mayenda’s is inside them either way. The sentence is removed. The merit sentence now gives its basis: the rule does not say how a season outside the League enters the three-year mean (Rule A.1.29(a)), and either reading leaves seventh. Robin Roefs’s extension is dated 28 August 2026, where “in August” could be read as the month he signed, in 2025. And the wage section said converting the filed staff cost would need an adjustment larger than the starting figure, which the article does not show; it now says the adjustment would be too large for the filed figure to anchor.
26 October 2026 · Regulatory interpretation · no change to the ratio
Correction, 26 October 2026. Sunderland’s ratio is unchanged at 60.6%. 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)).
28 October 2026 · Data correction · SCR 60.6% → 61.2% · before player sales 67.3% → 67.9%
Correction, 28 October 2026. The ratio is 61.2%, from 60.6%, and 67.9% before player trading, from 67.3%. 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. Sunderland paid Tottenham a £2.5m loan fee for Kevin Danso, which is squad cost in the year it arises (Rule A.1.22(e)); we had none. The obligation to buy follows only if Sunderland stay up, and is not counted. The squad cost is £162.2m, from £160.7m, and the headroom £63.2m, from £64.7m. The range is 57.0% to 65.0%, from 56.4% to 64.5%; without the revenue the rule adds the ratio is 86.0%, from 85.2%; the stress case 68.6%, from 68.4%. Treated as a permanent signing, Danso takes the ratio to 63.1% on a five-year contract and 63.7% on four, from 62.6% and 63.1%. Last season’s commercial and gate income, at the ends of the ranges they are drawn from, move it between about 59% and 63%, where the article had kept an earlier release’s 58% and 63%.
31 October 2026 · Data correction · SCR 61.2% → 60.5% · before player sales 67.9% → 67.2%
Correction, 31 October 2026. The ratio is 60.5%, from 61.2%, and 67.2% before player trading, from 67.9%. We checked every transfer in our records against published sources and corrected the entries where the club’s announcement or a reputable report, read on the page, gives a different figure. Four of Sunderland’s fees change, each to the guaranteed sum: Malick Fofana £25.7m, from £25.9m; Brian Brobbey £17.3m, from £21.3m; Nordi Mukiele £9.5m, from £12.0m; and Bertrand Traore £2.2m, from £2.5m. 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: Sunderland are inside the 85% line. It was not a change in the rules: our fees were too high.
2 November 2026 · Data correction · no change to the ratio
Correction, 2 November 2026. Sunderland’s ratio is unchanged at 60.5%. Two earlier corrections did not reach every line. The loan fee of 28 October made Kevin Danso’s cost £5.3m, from £3.8m, and the net cost of loans £2.7m, from £1.2m; the summary and the loans paragraph had kept the old figures. The fee corrections of 31 October made the summer 2025 signings’ amortisation £11.8m, from £13.5m, with Brian Brobbey at £17.3m, from £21.3m, Nordi Mukiele at £9.5m, from £12.0m, and Malick Fofana at about £25.7m, from £25.9m; the amortisation paragraph had kept the old figures, though its total, £66.2m, was right. The Danso branch in the closing caveats reaches 63.0%, from 63.7%, as the table already said. The 85.1% is measured before player trading. The article did not say so; with the sale-profit average counted, the same figure is about 74.6%. Also corrected. The article said a loan expected to become permanent is treated as a purchase from the start; Tottenham describe an obligation subject to performance-related conditions, and the central figure, as before, treats Danso as a loan. Reports differ on whether Ajax’s payment for Adingra covers his wages as well as the fee; the article now gives the effect, about 60.9%, if it does. The commercial estimate grows £7.6m of conference and banqueting income at its gross figure, where the rule counts conference business at net profit; the article now says so. The summary now says the £50m is earned merit and the European amounts the rule sets. The comparison with Leeds uses Leeds’ corrected 68.6% and 72.9%, from 68.3% and 72.6%, so the two are about 6 points apart before player trading, from 5. The twenty clubs together now come to 75.4%, from 75.3%, at this release. The label “revenue added by the rule” is replaced with merit above the fifteenth-place floor and European amounts. Rules A.1.13 and A.1.53 are added to the sources, and a section repeating the article’s points is removed.
2 November 2026 (second) · Data correction · no change to the ratio
Correction, 2 November 2026 (second of the day). Sunderland’s ratio is unchanged at 60.5%. The article said the accounts to 31 July 2026 are due around December. Companies House gives 30 April 2027, nine months after the year end, and the article now says so.