Coventry's squad cost ratio: a summer of buying on 15th-place money

Correction, 2 October 2026. The ratio is 61.2%, from 61.3%, and 63.4% before player trading is unchanged. Ben Sheaf is now carried at the £0.75m Coventry paid for him, with his 2023 extension, rather than at nil, and the book value of the players who have left is measured at Coventry’s own year end, 31 May. Amortisation falls from £45.8m to £45.7m. The change is about two hundredths of a point, but the figure sat on a rounding line, so it now prints 61.2%. Agents’ fees of £6m would give about 63.0%, and no promotion step-up 58.7%. The conclusion does not change: Coventry are well inside the 85% green threshold on every branch.

Correction, 3 October 2026. The ratio is 61.0%, from 61.2%, and 63.1% before player trading, from 63.4%. 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. Coventry played eight (three, four and one), so the rule counts three, where we had assumed two. Matchday revenue under the rule is £15.5m, from £14.8m. Also moved: the range is 56.5 to 65.6%, from 56.7 to 65.9%; green headroom is £40.8m, from £40.2m; and the stress case is 68.5%, from 68.8%. 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 63.5%, from 61.0%, and 65.7% before player trading, from 63.1%. 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 Coventry’s last accounts we now count the reported fee plus 12%. Squad cost is £107.8m, from £103.7m, and the three-year average of sale profit is £5.7m, from £5.8m, 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. Coventry’s accounts give no merchandise figure, so we estimate the cost of the goods from the clubs that do: £0.7m, in a range of £0.3m to £1.6m. It does not change the figure: the rule gives a promoted club a minimum for commercial revenue, and that minimum is higher either way. 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 £0.8m for Coventry, a figure with no calculation behind it. Rebuilt from Coventry’s cup ties in the last three seasons and the FA’s published prize fund and broadcast fees, it is £0.6m, in a range of £0.6m to £2.1m. 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 £164.0m, from £164.2m. Also moved: the range is 58.9 to 68.1%, from 56.5 to 65.6%; green headroom is £36.5m, from £40.8m; the stress case is 71.0%, from 68.5%.

Correction, 5 October 2026. The ratio is 64.1%, from 63.5%, and 66.3% before player trading, from 65.7%. 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. 13 of Coventry’s contract lengths change, 1 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 £50.8m, from £49.8m. The range is 59.5% to 68.7%, from 58.9% to 68.1%. 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 is built on accounts for a year before the group bought the arena companies in August 2025. Their accounts do not separate football income from other income, so we cannot yet say how the arena changes this ratio.

Correction, 7 October 2026. The ratio is 64.6%, from 64.1%, and 66.8% before player trading, from 66.3%. Caleb Yirenkyi’s fee is a reported £26m, where we had £23.1m. The club calls the fee undisclosed; £26m is the figure in a published list of the summer’s transfers. The summer’s signings now total about £142m, from £139m. The yearly charge for registrations is £51.7m, from £50.8m. The range is 60.0% to 69.2%, from 59.5% to 68.7%. No threshold is crossed. See the engine changelog.

Correction, 9 October 2026. The ratio is unchanged at 64.6%, and 66.8% before player trading, unchanged. Last season’s commercial revenue is now estimated by one published method, the same for every club. Coventry’s 2025/26 accounts are not filed, so the figure is an estimate. We had £11.5m, a judgement of ours. It is now £9.8m: the figure filed for 2024/25, with no growth assumed, because the method’s growth rate is fitted on Premier League seasons and Coventry spent 2025/26 in the Championship (how we estimate last season’s commercial revenue). It is provisional until the 2025/26 accounts are filed. Either figure is below the rule’s £15m minimum, and the minimum is what the rule counts, so the ratio and its range do not move. The minimum is not a forecast of Coventry’s commercial revenue. Because Coventry’s own figure is lower, the minimum and the quarter added to the gate now put in £9.1m, from £7.3m, worth 3.7 points, from 2.9; without them the ratio would be 68.2%, from 67.5%. 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.

Correction, 15 October 2026. The ratio is unchanged at 64.6%. Coventry’s 2024/25 accounts say that after the year end the club received £4.0m and paid £0.8m under sell-on and similar clauses on former players, without saying which players. We had entered the difference as if it were one sale of Viktor Gyökeres, with selling costs taken off. We now count the two amounts as the accounts print them, with no player named and no selling costs taken off: 2025/26 sale profit is £11.5m, from £11.3m, and the three-year average is £5.7m, unchanged. Green headroom is £34.7m, from £34.6m. Wording only: the table’s range is now labelled an assumption range, the spread of the model’s inputs between assumed bounds, as in the other club articles. See the engine changelog.

Updated 16 October 2026: loans out now recorded; wage relief shown in ranges. Coventry City’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.

Correction, 24 October 2026. No figure changed. The section on player trading described the sale-profit average as three financial years. The rule takes the profit or loss on sales in the six most recent transfer windows and divides it by three (Rules A.1.13 and A.1.53). For the March 2027 test that period starts on 2 February 2024. Coventry made no sale carrying value between then and the start of their 2024/25 year, so the three financial years in the table are the whole of it and the figure is unchanged. The section now says so.

Correction, 25 October 2026. Coventry’s ratio is unchanged at 64.6%. The comparison with the other clubs says the twenty clubs together come to 74.9%, from 75.6%: the corrections of 23 October to other clubs moved the total, and the sentence was updated then without a note here. The ratio without the revenue the promoted-club rules add, 68.2%, counts player trading, unlike the series’ figure for the revenue the rule adds at the other clubs, which is taken before trading; the text and the chart’s description now say so. The section on the range said almost all of the uncertainty is in the wage estimate, over a list that includes other estimates; it now says three estimates drive it. The agents’ fees in the squad cost are £1.0m, the part of the FA’s £1.5m charged as an expense; the article now says so. The heading on June transactions spoke of sales over an example that is a signing. And the stadium company’s income was said not to be part of the club’s football revenue; the note of 5 October says the effect of the arena cannot yet be said, and the body now agrees with it.

Correction, 26 October 2026. Coventry’s ratio is unchanged at 64.6%. 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)).

Correction, 28 October 2026. The ratio is 64.0%, from 64.6%, and 66.2% before player trading, from 66.8%. 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. Ethan Pinnock signed for three years, to June 2029, not two. His fee is spread over the longer contract (Rule A.1.22(c)). Amortisation is £50.6m, from £51.7m, and the squad cost £108.6m, from £109.6m; the headroom is £35.7m, from £34.7m. The range is 59.3% to 68.6%, from 60.0% to 69.2%; the stress case 71.5%, from 72.1%. Without the revenue the promoted-club rules add, the ratio would be 67.6%, from 68.2%, so that revenue is worth 3.6 points, from 3.7.

Correction, 31 October 2026. The ratio is 63.5%, from 64.0%, and 65.7% before player trading, from 66.2%. 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. Caleb Yirenkyi’s fee is £23.1m, the initial sum reported, not £26.0m. The summer’s signings now total about £139m, from £142m. 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: Coventry are inside the 85% line. It was not a change in the rules: our fee was too high.

Correction, 2 November 2026. Coventry’s ratio is unchanged at 63.5%. The article said the club’s year ends on 31 May and that June 2026 transactions fall in the year to May 2027. On 26 May 2026 Coventry extended the current accounting period to 30 June 2026, so the next accounts cover thirteen months and are due by 31 March 2027, not around December 2026, and Frank Onyeka’s move of 29 June 2026 falls in that period. The rule averages sales by transfer window, not by the company’s year, so no figure moves. Figures that had not followed earlier corrections. The summer 2026 signings’ amortisation is £36.1m, from £37.9m, after Ethan Pinnock’s three-year contract (28 October) and Caleb Yirenkyi’s £23.1m fee (31 October), where the list still said £26.0m; the parts, rounded separately, now make up the £49.8m total. With no promotion step-up the ratio would be 61.0%, not 62.1%, and with a 50% step-up 65.9%, not 67.1%; the 10% bonus allowance and employer costs move with the step-up. Agents’ fees. The article compared Coventry’s expensed £1.0m with Sunderland’s FA total of £10.6m and gave about 68%. Like with like, a £10.6m total, about two-thirds expensed, gives about 67.1%, and the whole of it as an expense about 69.1%; a £6m total gives 65.2%, not 66.4%. Also clarified. The revenue list now includes the £1.5m of cup income and academy grant that made up the total. Rules A.1.13 and A.1.53 are added to the sources.

Correction, 2 November 2026 (second of the day). Coventry’s ratio is unchanged at 63.5%. The article said the stadium company sits outside the club because it holds no player registrations. That does not follow: the arena companies and the club share control through Covcityco Ltd, and holding no registrations does not by itself place a company outside the perimeter the rule tests. The article now says they are owned by the same group, hold no player registrations, and that their accounts do not separate football income from other activity enough to establish how they affect this calculation. The agents’ sensitivities now say that counting about two-thirds of the FA’s total as an expense is an assumption of this reconstruction; the FA publishes no split.

Correction, 2 November 2026 (third of the day). Coventry’s ratio is unchanged at 63.5%. The note of 7 October named the outlet whose list of the summer’s transfers gave Caleb Yirenkyi’s £26m. It is not a source this publication cites, so the note now describes the list without the name. No figure changes.