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Hull City · Financial analysis

Hull City's squad cost ratio: £155m of signings on 15th-place money

Hull City's squad cost ratio for the 1 March 2027 test comes out at about 66.4%, inside the 85% green threshold with roughly £32m of annual headroom. Measured before profit on player sales it is 73.6%. Hull are a promoted club under the rule, so the rule counts their central money at 15th place, puts a £15m floor under commercial income and lifts last season's Championship gate by a quarter. Reconstructed from Hull City Tigers Ltd's accounts and Appendix 2 of the Premier League Handbook.

By Updated · View updates20 min read

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

SCR 2026/27·Post-summer projection
Two charts. Left: Hull City's squad cost ratio at 71.1% without the revenue the promoted-club rules add (with player trading still counted), 73.6% before player trading, and 66.4% on the rule's basis, with the range running 61.3% to 71.7% and every figure below the 85% green line. Right: profit on player sales of £0.2m from February to June 2024, £33.1m in 2024/25, £9.3m in 2025/26 and £8.0m so far in 2026/27, financial years to 30 June, against a three-year average of £16.9m.
Philogene and Greaves, then Pandur, then Joseph. Method: the last filed accounts, to 30 June 2025, are from a Championship season, so player wages are estimated player by player for the 2026/27 squad from two published wage sources, about £65.5m with employer costs. Amortisation is built from the June 2025 book value, less the players who have left, plus the signings since at the reported fee plus 12%. The revenue the promoted-club rules add is a £15m commercial floor and a 1.25 gate multiplier, £11.5m. Financial years end 30 June. The average covers the six most recent transfer windows (Rule A.1.53), from 2 February 2024. Range 61.3 to 71.7%. Orange Engine release V2CI. Independent estimate, not official.

Latest change to the figures, 31 October 2026: the ratio is 66.4%, from 67.0%, because Lucas Herrington’s fee is corrected. Latest correction, 2 November 2026: the amortisation list and the sensitivities had kept figures from before that change, with no figure in the ratio changed. All 11 correction notes are at the end.

Hull City are back in the Premier League for the first time since 2016/17, after winning the Championship play-off final as the sixth-placed side. Like Coventry, they are a promoted club under the rule, and their last filed accounts are for a Championship season. So the 2026/27 squad has been rebuilt from those accounts and from a player-by-player estimate of what the current squad is paid.

Hull City 2026/27
Squad cost ratio, 1 March 2027 test 66.4%
SCR before player trading 73.6%
Green headroom +£32.1m
Range 61.3 to 71.7%
Stress case (costs only) 74.5%

The squad costs £114.6m against £155.7m of the football revenue the rule counts, which is 73.6% before any player trading. The three-year average of profit on player sales, £16.9m a year, takes the figure to 66.4%.

Taken together, the twenty clubs of this season’s Premier League come to 75.3% on the same basis; Hull City’s 66.4% is below that. The full table for every club in the series is at Premier League SCR 2026/27.

What the accounts say

Hull City Tigers Ltd files accounts for the club company, to 30 June. It is owned by Acun Medya Holding BV, a Dutch company controlled by Acun Ilıcalı. The MKM Stadium is leased from Superstadium Management Company, owned by Superstadium Holdings, which Acun Ilıcalı also controls. The stadium companies are under the same ultimate ownership as the club but hold no player registrations. Their accounts do not separate football income from other activity sufficiently to establish how they affect this calculation, and no stadium income is counted here.

The year to 30 June 2025 was a Championship season in which Hull finished 21st and stayed up on goal difference. Turnover was £25.8m: £7.2m from match days, £12.5m of broadcasting and league distributions, £3.8m of commercial income and £2.4m of retail. Staff costs were £36.7m, across an average of 255 players, coaches and office staff. The club made £33.1m of profit on player sales, almost all from Philogene’s return to Aston Villa and Greaves’s move to Ipswich in July 2024, and still lost £10.2m. It is funded by its owner: £57.4m of loans from the owner’s group at the year end, about £16.8m of which has since been converted into shares.

The June year end decides which financial year a transaction falls in, though not whether a sale counts for the March 2027 test, which the transfer windows decide.

Why the wage bill is estimated player by player

For most clubs in this series, players’ wages are estimated as a share of the filed staff cost and moved forward through the windows since. At Hull that route would mostly measure the promotion. The £36.7m is a Championship bill for the whole staff; turning it into a Premier League players’ payroll after a £155m summer would need an adjustment bigger than the figure itself.

This reconstruction estimates the 2026/27 wage bill directly and uses the filed figure only as a check.

That comes to £56.1m a year of gross pay. Employer’s national insurance and pension add about 14%, taking it to £63.9m. The range around the build runs from 15% below to 20% above, wider on the upside because so many rows rest on a single source or an estimate, and its midpoint adds a further 2.5%: £65.5m in the central case (£56.1m × 1.14 × 1.025), against a Championship staff cost of £36.7m.

Amortisation: this summer is more than five-sixths of it

Amortisation is the annual charge that spreads a transfer fee over the player’s contract, measured from the day he was registered to the day the contract ends. The rule caps the period at five years.

Ten of this summer’s contracts run to June 2031, a little under five years from the day each player was registered, so the cap does not change any of them.

How the rule builds a promoted club’s revenue

For several revenue lines, Appendix 2 sets or floors a promoted club’s figure rather than using its own history, because it has no recent Premier League history to use:

The £15m floor and the 1.25 multiplier together add £11.5m to what Hull’s own figures would give, worth 4.7 points. Without them, with player trading still counted, the ratio would be 71.1%. Hull gain more from the floor than Coventry do because their own commercial income is lower.

Player trading

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, so for Hull it covers the years to June 2025, 2026 and 2027 and the five months before them.

The average is £16.9m, and player trading brings the ratio down by 7.2 percentage points. Two-thirds of that comes from 2024/25. When that year’s sales leave the average at the 2027/28 test, the trading support falls sharply unless later sales replace it; only Simons’s sale to Bolton in June 2025, about £0.3m of profit, falls in a later transfer window and stays in for that test (Rule A.1.53).

How sure is this?

The central figure is 66.4%, and the range runs from 61.3% to 71.7%. Three estimates drive the uncertainty:

Smaller items move it by less: Ansah’s fee at the £12.8m also reported would take it to 66.2%, and the Championship gate estimate is worth about a quarter of a point either way. On any of these Hull stay well inside the 85% green threshold. 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 74.5%.

How this was done

The figures are an independent reconstruction, not the Premier League’s calculation. The accounts for the year to 30 June 2026, due by 31 March 2027, will replace the estimated Championship gate and commercial income.

Corrections and updates (11)

4 October 2026 · Methodology change · SCR 64.0% → 66.4% · before player sales 70.9% → 73.6%

Correction, 4 October 2026. The ratio is 66.4%, from 64.0%, and 73.6% before player trading, from 70.9%. 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 Hull’s last accounts we now count the reported fee plus 12%. Squad cost is £114.5m, from £110.8m, and the three-year average of sale profit is £16.7m, from £16.9m, 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. Hull’s accounts give merchandise sales of £2.4m and not their cost; we take off £1.1m, on an estimated margin of 55%, in a range of £0.8m to £1.5m. 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 £0.7m for Hull, a figure with no calculation behind it. Rebuilt from Hull’s cup ties in the last three seasons and the FA’s published prize fund and broadcast fees, it is £0.1m, in a range of £0.1m to £0.3m. 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 £155.7m, from £156.3m. Also moved: the range is 61.3 to 71.8%, from 58.9 to 69.2%; green headroom is £32.0m, from £36.4m; the stress case is 74.5%, from 72.0%.

5 October 2026 · Methodology change · SCR 66.4% → 67.0% · before player sales 73.6% → 74.3%

Correction, 5 October 2026. The ratio is 67.0%, from 66.4%, and 74.3% before player trading, from 73.6%. 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. 26 of Hull’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 £45.0m, from £43.9m. The range is 61.9% to 72.4%, from 61.3% to 71.8%. 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 the club company’s accounts. The stadium is run by a separate company whose accounts do not show what it charges the club, so we cannot say whether the group basis would move this ratio, or which way.

9 October 2026 · Methodology change · no change to the ratio

Correction, 9 October 2026. The ratio is unchanged at 67.0%, and 74.3% before player trading, unchanged. Last season’s commercial revenue is now estimated by one published method, the same for every club. Hull’s 2025/26 accounts are not filed, so the figure is an estimate. We had £7.0m, a judgement of ours. It is now £6.1m: the figure filed for 2024/25, with no growth assumed, because the method’s growth rate is fitted on Premier League seasons and Hull 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 Hull’s commercial revenue. Because Hull’s own figure is lower, the minimum and the quarter added to the gate now put in £11.5m, from £10.6m, worth 4.8 points, from 4.4; without them the ratio would be 71.8%, from 71.4%. 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.

16 October 2026 · Assumption revision · no change to the ratio

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

23 October 2026 · Methodology change · no change to the ratio

Correction, 23 October 2026. Hull’s ratio is unchanged at 67.0%, and 74.3% before player trading; the top of the range is 72.3%, from 72.4%. 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 Ozan Tufan’s sale to Trabzonspor in June 2024, a profit of about £0.2m, was left out. Nothing in Hull’s own figures changed; the error was in how we read the rule.

  • Moved: the three-year average of sale profit is £16.9m, from £16.8m, worth 7.3 percentage points, from 7.2. The lead chart is redrawn with these figures.
  • Unchanged: the ratio, the figure before player trading, the bottom of the range, the stress case and the green headroom. See the engine changelog.
24 October 2026 · Methodology change · no change to the ratio

Correction, 24 October 2026. No figure changed. The article said the whole of 2024/25 drops out of the average for the 2027/28 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 to June fall in a later window than the rest of that year, so they stay in for one test longer. At Hull that is Simons’s sale to Bolton Wanderers on 12 June 2025, about £0.3m of profit; the fees for Racioppi and Andy Smith, who left on 25 June, are not known. The sentence now says so. The conclusion, that the support falls sharply, is unchanged.

25 October 2026 · Data correction · no change to the ratio

Correction, 25 October 2026. Hull’s ratio is unchanged at 67.0%. 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, 71.8%, 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 sentence on the June year end said it lines up with the rule’s calendar, which counts transfer windows from 2 February 2024 (Rule A.1.53); it now says what the year end decides. The trading list gave fees in brackets that add to more than the profit; it now says the profit is the fees less the cost still on the books. And the EFL restriction of summer 2025 is now dated.

26 October 2026 · Regulatory interpretation · no change to the ratio

Correction, 26 October 2026. Hull’s ratio is unchanged at 67.0%. 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 · no change to the ratio

Correction, 28 October 2026. Hull’s ratio is unchanged at 67.0%. 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. Sunderland’s stress case, quoted for comparison, is 68.6%, from 68.4%.

31 October 2026 · Data correction · SCR 67.0% → 66.4% · before player sales 74.3% → 73.6%

Correction, 31 October 2026. The ratio is 66.4%, from 67.0%, and 73.6% before player trading, from 74.3%. 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. Lucas Herrington’s fee is £12.6m, not £17.0m: the reported base was USD 17m, which we had carried as pounds. Robinio Vaz’s loan fee is £1.7m, the EUR 2m at the rate of the day. The summer’s signings now total about £155m, from £159m. 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: Hull are inside the 85% line. It was not a change in the rules: we read a dollar figure as sterling.

2 November 2026 · Data correction · no change to the ratio

Correction, 2 November 2026. Hull’s ratio is unchanged at 66.4%. The correction of 31 October did not reach every line. Lucas Herrington’s fee is £12.6m, the US$17m reported, where the list of signings still said £17.0m, and the summer 2026 signings’ amortisation is £37.9m, from £38.9m; with the £6.0m from the players held in June 2025 it makes the £44.0m total. The sensitivities had kept the figures from before the ratio moved to 66.4%: with no promotion step-up the ratio would be 64.2%, from 64.8%, and with a 50% step-up 68.6%, from 69.2%; Nobel Mendy at £1m a year gives 65.7%, from 66.3%, and at £3m 67.2%, from 67.8%. Ilyas Ansah’s lower reported fee lowers the ratio, to 66.2%; the article had said it raised it, to 66.8%. Without the promoted-club floor and gate uplift, with player trading counted, the ratio is 71.1%, worth 4.7 points, from 71.8% and 4.8, as the chart already showed. Agents’ fees. The article compared Hull’s expensed £1.7m with Sunderland’s FA total. Like with like, a £10.6m total, about two-thirds expensed, gives about 69.6%, and the whole of it as an expense about 71.6%; a £6m total gives 67.8%. The two-thirds is an assumption of this reconstruction. Also corrected. The article said the stadium company sits outside the club and that its income is not football revenue. The stadium companies and the club share an ultimate controller, Acun Ilıcalı, and holding no player registrations does not by itself place a company outside the perimeter the rule tests; the article now says they are under the same ultimate ownership as the club and that their effect cannot be established from their accounts. The next accounts are due by 31 March 2027, not around December 2026. The revenue list now includes the £1.0m of cup income and academy grant in the total, and Rule A.1.53 is added to the sources.