Analysis

Como: how the money gets to the lake, and what the rules make of it

Como 1907 went from bankruptcy to a 9-1 win in the Champions League in under a decade, paid for by an Indonesian owner who sends money into the club every few weeks. Italy's rules let that money settle the bill. UEFA's squad cost limit counts only what Como earn.

By Arthur van de Laak5 November 202618 min read

My interest in Italian football began with the Dutch at AC Milan, with Marco van Basten, Ruud Gullit and Frank Rijkaard in the side that won the European Cup in 1989 and 1990. Como caught my attention much later, when Cesc Fàbregas, the former Arsenal captain, started coaching on the shore of Lake Como, and a club that had been bankrupt in 2017 was playing Manchester United in the Champions League by October 2026.

On our calculation, Como’s squad cost ratio for calendar 2026 is about 140%, against UEFA’s limit of 70%. So far the owner has covered every loss with fresh equity, and the gap in 2026 would need the same. The owner has put about €314m into the club and its Italian sister companies in a little over three years, all of it as equity, and Italy’s financial rules let that money lift their penalties. UEFA’s rule does not count it at all, so a club that earned €55.4m in 2024/25 is measured against what it earns, not what its owner can pay.

From Serie D to Lens

Como’s recent history reads like a recovery story. The company that ran the club went bankrupt in 2016, and the company that bought its assets at auction was refused a place in the professional leagues by the Italian football federation (FIGC) before being declared bankrupt itself in October 2017. By then a new company, Como 1907 S.r.l., had been set up in July 2017 to start again in Serie D, and it was later bought by its current owners. Como returned to Serie A in 2024 after 21 years away, finished tenth in their first season back and fourth in their second, which took them into the 2026/27 Champions League. There they beat Manchester United 4-1 at home on 21 October 2026 and won 9-1 away at Lens on 4 November.

Everyone likes a success story. A club new to the Champions League, playing in a stadium of about 12,000 seats, has a hard job with the financial rules that come with it, and the case of Manchester City has put those rules in the foreground. It started with a leak. In November 2018 Der Spiegel published emails obtained through Football Leaks, the material taken by the Portuguese hacker Rui Pinto, and reported that in 2015 Etihad itself paid only £8m of its £67.5m annual sponsorship of City, with the owner’s holding company paying the other £59.5m. Etihad said its obligations under the partnership had always been its own responsibility, and City said the material had been hacked or stolen and taken out of context. The Premier League opened its investigation in December 2018 (Premier League statement) and UEFA in March 2019, both within months of the reports. Without the leak, neither case might have begun.

UEFA’s case turned on whether owner money had reached the club disguised as sponsorship. In July 2020 the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) found most of UEFA’s allegations either not established or time-barred, lifted City’s two-season exclusion from UEFA competitions and kept a fine, reduced to €10m, for City’s failure to cooperate. The Premier League’s independent commission reached a different finding. In September 2026 it found that some of City’s sponsorship deals had been a disguise for owner funding: the sponsors paid only part of their fees, and Abu Dhabi United Group, the company that owned the club, paid the rest (the commission’s decision). City have appealed, and the sanction has not been decided (Premier League statement).

Como’s filings show the opposite pattern, because the owner’s money arrives openly as equity, in payments the club’s accounts list by date. The two cases touch at one point, which is income from companies linked to the owner. UEFA tests that income at fair value, and all of Como’s €5.2m of sponsorship in 2024/25 came through another owner company, which signs the sponsorship contracts itself and pays the club a royalty. So this seemed a good time to look at a club outside the Premier League: how Como’s spending is funded, and where Como stand against UEFA’s rules and Italy’s.

Who owns Como

Como 1907 S.r.l. has a single shareholder, a London company called SENT Entertainment Limited, which is wholly owned by PT Global Media Visual of Indonesia. SENT’s accounts name the ultimate parent as PT Lingkarmulia Indah, registered in Kudus, Indonesia, and the ultimate controlling party as Robert Budi Hartono. The UK register of people with significant control says the same, listing him as holding 75% or more of the shares and votes. The chain therefore runs from an individual in Indonesia, through two Indonesian companies and one British one, to a football club on Lake Como, and the British link matters because it has a public filing record.

That record holds two further details. SENT’s 2023 accounts disclose call options granted to unnamed “Initial Co-Investors” over the capital of one of its subsidiaries from May 2023, which can be exercised only if control passes to someone other than the current shareholders, so whoever holds them gains only if control of that company changes hands. The accounts name neither the subsidiary nor the size of the stake. In July 2026 a new holding company, SB Legacy Holdings Limited, was registered at SENT’s London address, with Robert Budi Hartono as its controlling person and SENT director Robert Wijaya Suwanto as its sole director. Apart from moving its year end to 30 June, the date Como use, on the same day, it had filed nothing else by 5 November 2026.

How the money travels

The accounts SENT has filed show no borrowing to fund the club: no registered charges, no bank loans and no loans from its parent. SENT raises money by issuing shares, every one at £1 and every one for cash, and its share capital went from £3m in 2018 to £335m by June 2025 across more than forty allotments. In August 2026 SENT filed a reduction of its share capital to £320.25m, supported by a directors’ solvency statement, and the filing gives no reason. No shares were issued after June 2025, so the money sent to Italy from July 2025 came from cash SENT already held or from a source its filings do not yet show.

SENT’s accounts for the period to June 2025 are overdue at Companies House, so its own filings stop at December 2023. The only later figures for it on any register are in Como’s filing, which must summarise the parent’s accounts. For 2024 they are SENT’s standalone figures, marked as prepared in house, showing turnover of £5.6m, a loss of £13.0m and capital and reserves of £203.2m.

The money then moves into Italy, again as equity. In the club’s books the payments appear as cover for losses, not as loans, and the filed accounts list each one by date: in 2024/25 there were 23, roughly two a month, ranging from €0.3m to €9.6m.

Small and frequent payments look less like a budget set in advance than an owner covering the cash the club needs as it needs it. The directors’ report says much the same in its own terms: the shareholder monitors the club’s position constantly and has formally committed to support it through 2025/26.

The owner also stands behind the club’s transfer debts. SENT has lodged €11.1m of deposits backing the guarantees for the club’s transfers, which the club owes back to SENT, and it guarantees all of the club’s €21.9m of sureties. Of the €87.8m the club owed to other clubs and leagues in June 2025, €12.0m was owed to a factor, a finance company that takes over a debt. Often a selling club that does not want to wait for its instalments sells its right to them at a discount, is paid at once, and the buying club pays the factor instead; sometimes the buying club arranges the financing itself. The filing names neither the factor nor the deals, but either way part of what Como owe for their players is owed to a lender.

Some of the club’s income comes from inside the group. All of its €5.2m of sponsorship in 2024/25 was a royalty paid by SENT Entertainment Italy under an agreement between the two companies, and SENT Italy signs the sponsorship contracts itself. Most of the brands it has signed have no link to the owner that we could find: Uber was the front-of-shirt partner for the first two Serie A seasons, and Revolut took over in 2026/27. The exception is Polytron, the sleeve sponsor in 2024/25. It is an Indonesian electronics maker from Kudus, where SENT’s ultimate parent is registered, trading through PT Hartono Istana Teknologi, and the Indonesian business press describes it as part of the owners’ Djarum group. That is the kind of contract UEFA can test at fair value. Polytron was no longer among the partners on the club’s website in November 2026. In May 2024 the club also sold its Mozzate training centre to Sent Property, a third owner company, and now rents back the areas it uses, and it buys data-analytics services from its parent, which made up most of a €6.9m line for player observation.

What the accounts say

The scale of the change shows best in three years of the club’s own figures.

The 2024/25 figures are from the accounts filed at the Italian business register, audited without qualification, and the earlier ones from the club’s published report for 2023/24. For its UEFA licence the club also prepares a combined statement covering SENT’s Italian retail, property and academy companies, on which 2024/25 revenue was €62.0m and the loss €132.1m. UEFA’s tests use this wider basis, and the FIGC can also require consolidated figures.

Costs rose by more euros than revenue at each step. In the year to 30 June 2025, which includes the June 2025 window, the club committed €121m, before discounting, to new player registrations. The largest were Martin Baturina from Dinamo Zagreb at €20.5m, Anastasios Douvikas from Celta Vigo at €15.2m and Maxence Caqueret from Lyon at €15.0m. Player pay was €53.5m and performance bonuses €13.4m, on top of €12.1m for coaches and technical staff. Serie A television brought in €31.8m, while matchday income, from a stadium raised to about 10,500 seats for the season, was €5.9m.

Rebuilding the ratio

UEFA’s squad cost ratio (SCR) divides what the squad costs by the revenue the rule counts. The cost is player and head-coach wages, the cost of signings spread evenly over their contracts (amortisation), net loan fees and agents’ fees. The revenue is the club’s own football income plus a three-year average of the net result of player transfers (sale profit less losses on sales and write-downs of registrations), taken over the 36 months to 31 December. The test runs over the calendar year, so 2026 for the 2026/27 season, and owner equity does not enter it.

The figures below are our estimates for calendar 2026. Each range shows where the ratio lands if every uncertain input is set to the low or high end of what is plausible, which makes it an assumption range rather than a probability.

The lowest ratio comes from the low cost against the high revenue, 130 against 136, which is about 95%. The highest comes from the high cost against the low revenue, 180 against 88, which is about 205%. The middle of both ranges, €155m of squad cost against €112m of revenue, gives about 140%. At 70%, that revenue would allow €78m of squad cost, against our €155m. The difference, which UEFA calls the squad cost excess, is about €77m at the middle, in a range of roughly €35m to €120m.

UEFA money is the part whose rates we know, because UEFA publishes its distribution amounts: a starting fee of €18.62m, €2.1m for a win and €0.7m for a draw, and a payment based on each club’s market and European record, which UEFA calls the value pillar. Como had won three of their four league-phase matches by 5 November 2026 and play two more before 31 December 2026, and their share of the value pillar is held down by their lack of a European record. If the club books the league-phase money in proportion to matches played, about €35m falls in 2026. That split is our assumption, and the club’s own accounting policy could move the ratio by several percentage points. The width of the range comes from both sides: the 2026 wage bill and amortisation, which the 2025/26 accounts will show only in part, and revenue, where UEFA money and player sales are the widest lines.

What player trading does to it

Como have sold little. In 2024/25 sale profit was €5.1m, but UEFA’s formula sets that against €2.2m of losses on other sales and €4.7m of write-downs of player registrations, which leaves a small negative. The clubs that bought Como players in 2025 and 2026 disclosed no fees, so we cannot size the sales; we assume they were small. Nico Paz, the player most likely to bring a large fee, stayed: under an agreement both clubs announced on 29 June 2026, Real Madrid keep an option to buy him back for 2027/28, and neither club said whether Como paid to keep him.

We put the three-year average of sale profit, after write-downs, at between minus €3m and plus €8m a year. A single sale with a profit of €30m to €50m in 2026 would add €10m to €17m to that average, which at the middle of our range takes about 15 percentage points off the ratio, to about 125%, against UEFA’s 70% limit.

The Italian rules

Italy’s main financial test for Serie A clubs in 2026/27 is the labour-cost indicator, in Italian the costo del lavoro allargato, or “wider labour cost”. It asks how much of what a club earns goes on its squad.

The cost side is the pay of the professional players and the first-team coach, the amortisation and any write-downs of the players’ transfer fees, and agents’ fees charged to the accounts. Players under 23 who are eligible for Italy are left out, a deliberate nudge towards developing Italian players. The revenue side is the club’s own income from tickets, sponsorship, advertising, commercial activity and royalties, broadcasting and federation grants, plus profit from loans and player sales averaged over three years.

The indicator is measured twice a year, on the twelve months to 31 March and to 30 September, and filed by 31 May and 30 November ahead of the summer and winter transfer windows. A club that controls other companies must calculate it on a consolidated basis, and the FIGC draws that perimeter widely, taking in any company that controls the club or shares in its football business. For Como that would plausibly include SENT’s Italian retail, property and academy companies, which is close to the group statement the club prepares for its licence. The filings do not show which basis Como use, so we give both.

The threshold is 0.7, so cost may be at most 0.7 times revenue. It was 0.8 for the January 2026 window and has been 0.7 since the summer 2026 window, where it stays until 2029/30. A club whose indicator is higher than 0.7 cannot register new players unless each signing is offset in the same window by sales, terminations or players giving up pay, with no pay rise for anyone already registered. The block lifts if the owner covers the difference between the cost and 0.7 times revenue with fresh capital or loss-covering payments in cash or with subordinated, interest-free loans. The club can also cover it by selling future transfer or television receivables outright to a finance company, as long as that income has not already been counted in the indicator.

On our calculation, Como’s squad cost on this definition in 2024/25 was about €106m to €111m on either basis: €71m to €76m of pay, €30.7m of amortisation and write-downs and €4.1m of agents’ fees. That assumes few of Como’s players fall under the under-23 exclusion; if more do, the indicator is lower. The table measures 2024/25 against the 0.7 threshold that applies from summer 2026, which was not yet in force that season.

The group basis adds SENT Italy’s outside sponsorship and the club shop’s sales, which moves the indicator a little and the cover needed by a few million euros. We have not estimated the indicator at 30 September 2026, because the accounts it rests on have not been filed. The owner paid €133.6m into the club in 2024/25 and €69.2m more between July and October 2025, and Como have kept registering players; the filings do not show whether a block arose. As the rule is written, an owner willing to provide the money can lift the block, so it works more like a bill than a ban.

UEFA’s SCR measures much the same costs against much the same revenue, with the same 70% limit. The difference is the owner’s money, which lifts the penalty in Italy and counts for nothing at UEFA.

The FIGC’s break-even rule, new in 2027/28, caps the deficit at €60m over three years (the first test may use only two) and does not apply in 2026/27.

UEFA’s other tests

UEFA’s football earnings rule looks at losses over three seasons, for Como 2023/24, 2024/25 and 2025/26. On the combined basis UEFA uses, the first two losses were €49.5m and €132.1m, and we estimate 2025/26 at €100m to €160m. After the deductions and exclusions UEFA allows, for youth, women’s football, infrastructure and the depreciation of fixed assets, the deficit comes to about €240m to €325m, against an allowance of €60m provided the owner covers it. Como would not get the extra allowance UEFA gives clubs whose liquid assets cover their debts due within a year (a quick ratio of at least 1), because at June 2025 that ratio was about 0.4 for the club and 0.5 for the group. Above the allowance, UEFA’s usual instrument is a settlement agreement, which sets spending limits and targets for the following seasons.

Net equity must be positive at 31 December 2025. In June 2025 it was €32.4m for the club and €53.7m for the group; after that the owner paid €69.2m more into the club and €10.1m into SENT’s Italian companies, against losses for the half-year that the filings do not yet show.

What this doesn’t say

These are our estimates, made before Como or UEFA had reported anything for 2026, and a simplified reconstruction of UEFA’s formula from public accounts rather than the calculation the club will submit in 2027. UEFA can adjust what clubs report, and its fair-value test on income from related parties can only lower revenue.

The figures themselves take no view on UEFA’s decision. For a ratio higher than 70%, the regulations set a sliding scale of measures taken first from UEFA prize money. For a first case, a ratio higher than 100% brings a measure of 75% to 100% of the squad cost excess. A ratio higher than 90% counts as “significant”, which brings further measures; our range runs from 95% to 205%. What those measures are, and where Como land on the scale, is for UEFA’s Club Financial Control Body (CFCB) to decide.

Nor do the figures say how long the owner will pay. Owner equity keeps Como’s balance sheet positive and can lift the Italian registration blocks, but it does nothing for the SCR, and under the football earnings rule it raises the allowance only to €60m, against our estimated deficit of €240m to €325m. The filings record a formal commitment to support the club through 2025/26 and say nothing about the years after.

Where this leaves Como

My view is that Como will pay UEFA for their 2026 squad spending, most likely through money withheld from their prize money, and that, with our range at 95% to 205% against the 90% at which UEFA’s “significant” category begins, the CFCB will add further measures of its own. The financial measure need not stop at prize money: if it is larger than what UEFA owes the club, Como pay the difference. On a squad cost excess of €77m at the middle of our range, a first-time measure of 75% to 100% would come to roughly €57m to €77m, which could be more than Como earn from UEFA in 2026/27. I expect the owner can carry that.

The harder test comes from 2027/28, when the FIGC’s break-even rule caps the deficit at €60m over three years and blocks registrations at a club that fails. The owner can lift each block with fresh equity paid in after the year in question, but money paid in earlier cannot be counted again, so every test needs new equity for any deficit above the cap. The rule does not stop an owner who keeps paying. It makes those payments, year after year, the condition for registering players. Como only leave that cycle by keeping their losses inside the cap, which means growing revenue, and selling players at a profit, instead of relying on payments every few weeks. A 12,000-seat stadium held under concession from the city limits how fast revenue can grow until the redevelopment is done; the club’s timetable puts its second construction phase in August 2028.

I started with a club that went from bankruptcy to a 9-1 win in the Champions League, and that story is real. So are the 23 payments the owner made in 2024/25 alone.