Coventry City: what has changed

Sixteen transfer entries at eleven clubs corrected after a check of every transfer against published sources, each read on the page cited. Add-ons that have not yet fallen due on a signing now count in the range only, as the rules count a fee when it is payable. Eight clubs' estimates move by less than a percentage point; none crosses a line.

• Arsenal are at 60.7%, from 60.1%: Bruno Guimaraes's contract runs to June 2030, not June 2031, because the option year is not part of it, so his fee is spread over a shorter contract (Rule A.1.22(c)).
• Sunderland are at 61.2%, from 60.6%: Kevin Danso's £2.5m loan fee is a squad cost (Rule A.1.22(e)).
• Chelsea are at 88.6%, from 88.3%: Geovany Quenda's guaranteed fee is £43.4m, not £40.0m, and Pedro Neto's £51.4m, not £54.0m, each with the part not yet due left out (Rules A.1.43 and A.1.22(c)); Kian Best's contract runs to June 2027, not June 2029, so his fee is spread over a shorter contract (Rule A.1.22(c)).
• Coventry City are at 64.0%, from 64.6%: Ethan Pinnock's contract runs to June 2029, not June 2028, so his fee is spread over a longer contract (Rule A.1.22(c)).
• Nottingham Forest are at 97.4%, from 97.6%: Daniel Munoz cost £20m guaranteed, not £22m, with £2m of add-ons not yet due in the range only (Rules A.1.43 and A.1.22(c)); Mason Ayre's scholarship runs to June 2028, not June 2029.
• Crystal Palace are at 78.2%, from 78.1%, and Tottenham at 81.0%, from 80.9%: Munoz's sale brought Palace £20m guaranteed, not £22m, and Djed Spence's sale brought Tottenham £26.9m, not £30.0m, with add-ons counted only when they fall due (Rule A.1.29(g)).
• Bournemouth are at 85.4%, from 85.5%: Alex Toth's contract runs to June 2031, not June 2030, so his fee is spread over a longer contract (Rule A.1.22(c)).
• Brentford (Sam Sene-Richardson to June 2028 and Darwin Guagua to June 2031), Brighton (Michael Dike to June 2027 and Nils Ramming to June 2030) and Fulham (Cesar Palacios from 3 August 2026) take corrections to contract lengths and a date (Rule A.1.22(c)); no published figure moves.

What moved: Arsenal 60.1% → 60.7%; Sunderland 60.6% → 61.2%; Chelsea 88.3% → 88.6%; Crystal Palace 78.1% → 78.2%; Tottenham 80.9% → 81.0%; Coventry City 64.6% → 64.0%; Nottingham Forest 97.6% → 97.4%; Bournemouth 85.5% → 85.4%.

Also moved:ArsenalSunderlandChelseaCrystal PalaceTottenhamNottingham ForestBournemouthBrentfordBrightonFulham

When a club sells a player it once bought, the club that sold him first may be owed a share of the fee: a sell-on. We counted a sell-on as a cost to the club paying it, but had no proper way to count it as income for the club receiving it. This release adds that, applies it to two sell-ons, and corrects the fee Everton paid for Iliman Ndiaye. Newcastle's figure moves from 84.7% to 84.9%.

• The rule averages each club's profit on selling players over three seasons. A sell-on a club receives on another club's later sale is part of that profit, in the club's own financial year, even though it sells nobody. We now record it that way: the full amount, with no selling costs taken off, and without treating it as the sale of one of the club's own players. A payment a club's accounts show for clauses on former players is counted the same way, as a cost.
• Where both clubs are among the twenty we cover, the amount one club records as paid must match, deal by deal, the amount the other records as received. Each club's side is placed in its own financial year, which can differ, as clubs' year ends differ.
• Newcastle owe Everton a share of the profit on Anthony Gordon's sale to Barcelona in May 2026. Reports put it at 15% of Newcastle's profit, about £3.1m, though they disagree on how it is worked out. We now count it at both clubs, as a reported figure rather than a confirmed one: a cost to Newcastle and income to Everton. Across the two clubs it nets to zero.
• Coventry City's accounts say that after their 2024/25 year end the club received £4.0m and paid £0.8m under sell-on and similar clauses on former players. The accounts do not say which players. We had entered the net amount as if it were one sale of Viktor Gyökeres, with selling costs taken off. We now record both amounts as the accounts print them, for no named player. Coventry's figure does not move at the precision we publish.
• Everton paid Marseille €18.5m for Iliman Ndiaye in July 2024, with up to €2.5m more in add-ons reported but not known to have been paid. We had recorded £20m, which was Marseille's own earlier fee for him. At the exchange rate of the day the guaranteed fee is £15.7m; the add-ons are noted but not counted. The lower fee raises Everton's costs for the rest of the squad slightly and raises its profit when he was sold to Manchester City this September. With the Gordon sell-on, Everton's central figure stays at 73.4%.
• Newcastle's central figure is now 84.9%, in an assumption range of 79.1% to 88.8%. It is below 85% on the central estimate, and the range spans the line: the estimate does not reliably tell which side of 85% Newcastle are on.

What moved: Newcastle 84.7% → 84.9% (range 79.1 to 88.8%); Everton 73.4% → 73.4% (range 68.9 to 77.0%; 84.9% before player trading, from 84.4%); Coventry City 64.6% → 64.6%

Also moved:EvertonNewcastle

Corrections from a club-by-club check of our inputs against each club's own announcements, the League's published squad lists and filed accounts. Seven estimates move, Fulham's the most: 104.0%, from 106.4%.

• Fulham: we had treated Hugo Larsson as bought from the day he arrived, on a report that an obligation to buy had been triggered by his first appearance. Fulham, Eintracht Frankfurt and the Bundesliga describe a loan with a conditional obligation that completes at the end of the season, and Frankfurt still listed him as its player on loan in October. We could not read the one report that says the condition has been met. Our main estimate now treats him as a loan; the purchase case is inside the range.
• Manchester City: the three-year average of UEFA prize money is now built from its three seasons (two filed, one estimated) and is higher than the round figure we had used.
• Chelsea: the fee for Axel Disasi's loan to Crystal Palace is now counted as received by Chelsea, as it was already counted as paid by Palace, and is set against the cost of his registration, which Chelsea still holds. The amount is an estimate.
• Brighton: Pascal Gross's contract runs to June 2027, as the club announced, not 2028.
• Crystal Palace: Borna Sosa's fee is a reported £3m, where we had none. Coventry: Caleb Yirenkyi's is a reported £26m, where we had £23.1m.
• Signing dates at eleven clubs now follow the club's own dated announcement. Most moves are a few days and change nothing that we print.
• Three of the League's squad lists had been copied into our records with errors. They are corrected against the League's pages; no estimate moves.

What moved: Fulham 106.4% → 104.0%; Manchester City 76.1% → 75.7%; Chelsea 94.3% → 93.2%; Brighton 79.5% → 79.9%; Crystal Palace 78.5% → 78.9%; Coventry 64.1% → 64.6%; Brentford 84.1% → 84.2%

Also moved:FulhamManchester CityChelseaBrightonCrystal PalaceBrentford

We now measure every contract from the day a player was registered to the day the contract 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, which made each year's charge a little too small. On that change every club's ratio rises, by 0.1 to 0.9 points. Five clubs also move because we now read the accounts of the group the rule describes, not the club company alone. No club's central figure crosses a threshold.

• The cost of signing a player is spread over the length of his contract. We had used the length as announced, in whole years. We now use the time between the registration date and the contract's end date.
• 504 contract lengths changed. For 190 of them a source states the end date. For the other 314 we have derived it as the 30 June that the announced length points to, which is when contracts in English football end, and we mark those dates as derived until we have a source for each.
• No length changed by as much as half a year. The effect is a few weeks per player, added up across each squad.
• Bournemouth's central figure moves from 85.2% to 85.5%, in an assumption range of 80.1% to 87.7%. The range still spans the 85% line, so the estimate does not tell which side of the line the club is on.
• Brentford (84.1%) and Tottenham (82.3%) move closer to the line. Neither is above it at the central figure.
• The same rule now applies to the contract a loan with an obligation to buy would create. One published figure moves on it, Fulham's, by 0.1 points.
• The rule tests a club together with its football companies. At Brighton and Sunderland the women's team is a separate company whose revenue the rule counts, so their ratios fall, by 0.3 and 0.2 points. At Ipswich the group's accounts remove a fee the club charges its own parent, so its commercial revenue is lower and its ratio rises by a further 0.9 points.
• Newcastle's group includes the women's team and a fan zone beside the stadium that opened in August 2024. We count the women's team's revenue in full and the fan zone at its profit, which lowers the ratio from 84.7% to 83.9%. This rests on our reading of the rule. The rule counts matchday food and drink in full, and if the League treats the fan zone that way the figure is lower, so the assumption range now runs from 80.7% to 86.0%.
• Manchester City's women's team sits in another company of the same group. We add its ticket and broadcasting income, which lowers the ratio by 0.3 points. We do not add its sponsorship income, because the accounts do not show that it comes from outside the group.
• A women's team's company often receives money from its own club. We count only what comes from outside the group, and nothing extra where the team is already inside the accounts we read.
• For seven clubs the group's accounts cannot yet be applied, because the documents do not print what is needed or, at Manchester United, because the change is large enough to need a release of its own. Their figures are unchanged on this point and each club's article says so.
• A check that used to require whole years for a summer signing now requires each length to agree with its dates. It still refuses the error it was written to catch.
• A new check stops a club's European revenue being switched off by mistake. It compares each club's record with the list of clubs in the league phase of their competition.
• We read every figure we take from the clubs' accounts against its page again. Twelve did not match. None of them is used in the ratio, and all are corrected. One, Nottingham Forest's amortisation for 2023/24, had been quoted in our article and was corrected there on 4 October.

What moved: Arsenal 60.4% → 60.7%; Aston Villa 75.7% → 76.0%; Bournemouth 85.2% → 85.5%; Brentford 83.9% → 84.1%; Brighton 79.7% → 79.5%; Chelsea 94.0% → 94.3%; Coventry 63.5% → 64.1%; Crystal Palace 78.0% → 78.5%; Everton 72.8% → 73.3%; Fulham 106.0% → 106.4%; Hull 66.4% → 67.0%; Ipswich 94.1% → 95.8%; Leeds 67.0% → 67.4%; Liverpool 73.9% → 74.0%; Manchester United 58.8% → 59.0%; Newcastle 84.2% → 83.9%; Nottingham Forest 102.5% → 103.4%; Sunderland 63.2% → 63.4%; Tottenham 82.1% → 82.3%

Also moved:ArsenalAston VillaBournemouthBrentfordBrightonChelseaCrystal PalaceEvertonFulhamHull CityIpswich TownLeedsLiverpoolManchester CityManchester UnitedNewcastleNottingham ForestSunderlandTottenham

We rebuilt the matchday income that the rule counts for every club. The rule takes last season's gate receipts per home match and multiplies by this season's home matches. We had not counted the matches properly and had not written down how we estimated the receipts. Both are now done: the matches are counted from archived match reports, and the receipts follow a published method. Fourteen clubs' squad cost ratios move, eight down and six up, and no club crosses a threshold.

• Home cup ties. The rule counts the average number of home FA Cup and League Cup matches over three seasons, rounded up. Twelve clubs had too few. Newcastle and Chelsea each played 13 in three seasons, so the rule counts five a season.
• Last season's home matches. The rule divides last season's receipts by every home match played. Eleven clubs' counts were wrong. Newcastle played 31 home matches, not 24; Crystal Palace 28, not 24; Chelsea 26, not 28.
• Last season's receipts. Most clubs have not filed 2025/26 accounts, so the figure is an estimate. For thirteen clubs it now starts from the last filed year, adjusted for the change in cup and European home matches and for 5% growth. Arsenal's earlier figure, raised for a European run that was no longer than the year before, is withdrawn.
• The largest movements are Tottenham, 79.4% to 77.6%, and Newcastle, 77.7% to 79.4%. At Fulham and Brentford the corrections cancel and the figure does not move.
• Manchester United's records take five small corrections to a signing date, two fees and two contract lengths, worth less than a hundredth of a point together.
• Every figure on the site is now rounded once, from the model's exact value. Three printed ranges change by a tenth of a point as a result.
• The method is set out in "How we estimate matchday revenue". A separate review of agents' fees on signings since the last accounts is under way and may raise these figures; we will report its result.

What moved: Tottenham 79.4% → 77.6%; Newcastle 77.7% → 79.4%; Crystal Palace 73.6% → 74.9%; Liverpool 70.6% → 69.6%; Everton 71.7% → 70.7%; Arsenal 55.8% → 56.6%; Chelsea 88.6% → 88.0%; Manchester United 58.7% → 58.1%; Aston Villa 71.9% → 72.5%; Brighton 77.8% → 77.4%; Nottingham Forest 96.7% → 97.0%; Bournemouth 83.0% → 82.8%; Coventry 61.2% → 61.0%; Manchester City 74.1% → 74.2%

Also moved:TottenhamNewcastleCrystal PalaceLiverpoolEvertonArsenalChelseaManchester UnitedAston VillaBrightonNottingham ForestBournemouthManchester CityFulhamBrentfordLeeds

A further check of the transfer records behind every figure: players recorded as costing nothing, sale fees that included add-ons, contract terms and extensions, and fees a selling club owed to a player's former club. It also corrects the date at which departed players' remaining cost is measured for clubs whose year does not end on 30 June. Thirteen published ratios move, by between 0.1 and 1.0 points; no club crosses the 85% or 115% threshold.

• Aston Villa's ratio rises from 70.8% to 71.7%, because Middlesbrough are owed a fifth of Villa's profit on Morgan Rogers, about £20m, which the figures had counted as Villa's.
• Fees owed to former clubs are now deducted on the largest sales where a reliable report states them, which also raises Newcastle (Bruno Guimarães and Alexander Isak) to 77.7%, Bournemouth (Antoine Semenyo) to 83.5% and, with a sale fee that had been recorded in euros as pounds, Brighton to 78.1%.
• Every player sold for a fee while recorded as costing nothing is now checked; those who were in fact bought are either restored to their cost or listed with the most the gap could matter.
• Sale fees are now the guaranteed fee wherever the clubs or a reliable outlet state it, with add-ons kept separate; Chelsea's ratio rises to 88.6% and Liverpool's to 70.6%, and Crystal Palace's falls to 73.0%.
• Contract terms and extensions were corrected where a reliable source dates them; smaller moves follow for Tottenham, Arsenal, Nottingham Forest, Leeds, Coventry City and Ipswich Town.
• For Arsenal, Liverpool and Coventry, whose accounts end on 31 May, the remaining cost of players who have left is now measured at that date rather than 30 June; Arsenal's ratio falls to 55.7%.
• Where no reliable source exists yet, the figure is kept and the most it could matter is recorded.

What moved: Aston Villa 70.8% → 71.7%; Brighton 77.2% → 78.1%; Newcastle 76.7% → 77.7%; Bournemouth 83.1% → 83.5%; Chelsea 88.4% → 88.6%; Liverpool 70.5% → 70.6%; Crystal Palace 73.1% → 73.0%; Nottingham Forest 96.9% → 96.7%; Tottenham 79.3% → 79.4%; Arsenal 55.8% → 55.7%; Leeds 64.6% → 64.5%; Coventry City 61.3% → 61.2%; Ipswich Town 88.9% → 88.8%

Also moved:Aston VillaBrightonNewcastleBournemouthChelseaLiverpoolCrystal PalaceNottingham ForestTottenhamArsenalLeedsIpswich Town

Every club’s departures are now declared from sources, window by window, and reconciled against its ledger in both directions. All 20 clubs were migrated to the new check, and it is enforced: a departure missing on either side refuses the run.

• A declared departure with no matching sale in the ledger refuses; a sale in the ledger missing from the declaration refuses. Dates that differ by more than a week, or fall in a different financial year, refuse.
• Free transfers, releases, retirements and contract expiries are exits, not sales, and are never counted as departures.
• Migrating each club from its sources found missing sales, wrong dates and misclassified exits at several clubs. Each was corrected under its own record before the club was declared.

What moved: Chelsea 103.1% → 101.5%; Fulham 101.3% → 102.0%; Nottingham Forest 99.5% → 99.6% (missing sales, sale dates and the Jota Silva sale); Newcastle 76.7% → 77.1%; Brighton 77.6% → 77.8%; Brentford 84.2% → 84.5%; Everton 73.5% → 73.3%; Manchester United 58.6% → 58.7%. Others unchanged at published precision.

Also moved:ArsenalAston VillaBournemouthBrentfordBrightonChelseaCrystal PalaceEvertonFulhamHull CityIpswich TownLeedsLiverpoolManchester CityManchester UnitedNewcastleNottingham ForestSunderlandTottenham

Coventry City added: the first promoted club, and the first live test of the promoted-club revenue rules.

• The £15m commercial floor binds over the club’s own estimate; wages are built player by player.

What moved: Coventry City enter at 61.3% (range 56.7 to 65.9%).

A second way to build wages, for clubs whose last filed accounts describe a Championship season: the 2026/27 squad’s wages are built player by player from sources, with the filed payroll kept as a check. No published figure moved.

• For these clubs, rolling the filed payroll forward would have meant a change of 30% or more, mostly assumption.
• One wage function now serves the central estimate, the stress case and the simulation, so a second method cannot be half-applied.

Also moved:LeedsSunderlandHull CityIpswich Town