Hull City: what has changed

The figures for later tests now count every sale in the right transfer window at ten more clubs, and every sentence that says when a sale leaves the average is now checked against the rule. No club's estimate for this season moves.

• The March 2028 test counts sales from 4 February 2025. The sales from then to each club's year end are now listed one by one at Arsenal, Brighton, Coventry, Crystal Palace, Fulham, Hull, Ipswich, Leeds, Manchester City and Sunderland.
• Brighton's figure for the March 2029 test, on frozen costs, is about 92%, from about 99%: its sales of February to June 2026 stay in the average for that test.
• Sunderland's sale-profit average at the March 2028 test is about £22.8m, from about £11m: Bellingham's and Watson's sales of June 2025 stay in for that test.
• Articles that said a whole financial year leaves the average are corrected, each with a note.

What moved: No ratio for the 2027 test moves. Brighton, March 2029 test: about 99% → about 92%. Sunderland, average at the March 2028 test: about £11m → about £22.8m.

Also moved:BrightonSunderlandIpswich TownLeeds

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 VillaBournemouthBrentfordBrightonChelseaCoventry CityCrystal PalaceEvertonFulhamIpswich TownLeedsLiverpoolManchester CityManchester UnitedNewcastleNottingham ForestSunderlandTottenham

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 VillaBournemouthBrentfordBrightonChelseaCoventry CityCrystal PalaceEvertonFulhamIpswich TownLeedsLiverpoolManchester CityManchester UnitedNewcastleNottingham ForestSunderlandTottenham

Hull City added: the second promoted club. The £15m commercial floor binds, worth about 3.7 points.

• Agents’ fees taken from the FA’s published 2025/26 figure, the series standard; the understatement this may carry is disclosed in the article.

What moved: Hull City enter at 64.0% (range 58.9 to 69.2%).

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:LeedsSunderlandCoventry CityIpswich Town