Manchester City: what has changed

Fees clubs paid for managers, and compensation clubs received for releasing them, are now counted where they have been reported or filed. Six clubs' estimates move by less than a percentage point; none crosses a line.

• Manchester City are at 74.4%, from 73.7%, with Enzo Maresca's reported £17.2m fee spread over his three-year contract.
• Chelsea are at 88.3%, from 89.1%, with the £17m reported from City for releasing Maresca.
• Brentford are at 81.6%, from 82.3%, Ipswich at 97.9%, from 97.1%, Newcastle at 81.7%, from 81.3%, and Crystal Palace at 78.1%, from 77.8%.
• Loan fees received that the accounts print outside player sales widen the ranges at Bournemouth, Forest, Ipswich and Villa; no central figure moves for them.
• Brentford's range now ends just below 85%, and Newcastle's now reaches just above it.

Also moved:ChelseaBrentfordIpswich TownNewcastleCrystal Palace

The items a review of every article found still open after the last release are corrected, each with a dated note, and the Manchester City points-deduction scenarios are rerun on our current figures. No club's estimate for this season moves.

• Figures that had fallen behind are brought into line, among them the gap between Crystal Palace and Everton before player trading, 15.2 points, from 15.5.
• Statements of the rule are corrected where they had drifted: the five-year cap applies to contracts signed or extended on or after 12 December 2023, and a loan fee is set first against the player's wages.
• The Manchester City deduction scenarios are rerun: after a 40-point deduction City would be at 85.4%, from 85.6%, and after 55 points they would lose 17 league points in their second season back, from 20.
• Manchester City's appeal of 2 October is recorded in every piece that still gave a deadline.

Also moved:Manchester UnitedCrystal PalaceEvertonBrightonBrentfordLiverpoolTottenham

We checked every step of the engine against the squad cost rules, clause by clause, and corrected everything public information allows in one release. Contracts signed since December 2023 for more than five years are now capped at five years even for players already on the books, Villa's Super Cup money counts, and the figures for later tests are worked out window by window and restored. Five estimates move, none by more than 0.6 of a point.

• The five-year cap: a contract signed or extended since 12 December 2023 for more than five years is now spread over five years for players who were already on the club's books, as the rule says, not over its full length (Chelsea, Manchester City, Aston Villa, Manchester United).
• The UEFA Super Cup: Aston Villa's €4m for playing the 2026 Super Cup now counts, as the rule says once the amount is known.
• Sunderland: their FA Cup home tie against Stoke City in January 2025 is now evidenced, so they are credited with two home cup matches, not one.
• Figures for later tests: the figures withdrawn earlier on 23 October are worked out window by window and restored.
• What the engine cannot capture from public information is now listed once, with its direction and size, on its own page.
• Every figure an article prints from the engine is now registered and recomputed at each release. The new check found figures in eight more articles that earlier corrections had not carried through; each is corrected, with a note.
• Regulation part 5, which gives each club's distance from a ratio of 60%, is restated on the corrected figures.

What moved: Chelsea 88.6% → 89.1%; Manchester City 73.1% → 73.7%; Aston Villa 74.4% → 74.2%; Manchester United 56.8% → 56.9%; Sunderland 60.8% → 60.6%

Also moved:ChelseaAston VillaManchester UnitedSunderland

We had averaged each club's profit on player sales over three financial years, but the rule averages the sales made in the six most recent transfer windows, which for the March 2027 test start in February 2024. Sales between February and June 2024 now count, among them several made before the June 2024 deadline of the previous rules, and ten estimates move: Chelsea's to 88.6%, from 92.5%, and Newcastle's to 81.3%, from 84.9%, the largest.

• The period the rule averages: the profit or loss on player sales over the six most recent transfer windows, divided by three, not over three financial years. For the March 2027 test the period starts on 2 February 2024, so sales from then until each club's 2024/25 year began now count.
• Brentford: David Raya's sale to Arsenal, which Brentford booked in June 2024, now counts, and Mark Flekken's sale to Bayer Leverkusen in June 2025 is no longer counted twice.
• Figures for later tests: where an article gives a club's figure for a later year, it is now worked out window by window; where we have not yet done that, the figure is withdrawn while we recheck it.

What moved: Chelsea 92.5% → 88.6%; Newcastle 84.9% → 81.3%; Aston Villa 77.4% → 74.4%; Nottingham Forest 99.3% → 97.6%; Brentford 83.8% → 82.3%; Everton 73.3% → 72.3%; Manchester City 73.8% → 73.1%; Tottenham 80.4% → 80.9%; Leeds 68.6% → 68.3%; Manchester United 56.9% → 56.8%

Also moved:ChelseaNewcastleAston VillaNottingham ForestBrentfordEvertonTottenhamLeedsManchester United

Players a club has loaned out are now recorded at all twenty clubs, with an allowance for the part of their wages the borrowing club pays. Where a named source says how much the borrower pays, the saving counts in our central figure; where nobody says, it only widens the range. Four central figures move, the largest Nottingham Forest's, from 102.3% to 99.3%.

• A club that loans a player out often stops paying some or all of his wages, which lowers the squad cost the rule counts. We had recorded loans out at some clubs and not at others. Every club's squad is now checked against its own website and the League's registration return, and every player out on loan in 2026/27 is recorded with the loan.
• Wages are not published, so each loaned player carries an estimated salary range based on what the club paid for him. How much of it the borrowing club pays is stated for only a few players. Where a named outlet reports the split, we count the saving in the central figure. Where nobody states it, we no longer assume a half share: the saving can be anything from nothing to the whole wage, so it widens the range and leaves the central figure where it was.
• The same treatment applies to last season's loans, which lowered the wages in the accounts we start from. Where a player is back, or was counted out of the wage bill at his full salary, we add his saving back; where the split is not stated, that too goes into the range.
• Nottingham Forest's central figure falls from 102.3% to 99.3%. Omari Hutchinson's wages at AC Milan are reported to be paid in full by Milan, which takes off 1.7 points. Gustavo Sá was sold to Olympiacos on 30 July 2026, and we had still counted him in the squad. No fee has been published, so we record the sale at what Forest paid for him, as an estimate; that takes off 1.2 points. Forest are still above 85%.
• Manchester United's figure moves from 57.3% to 56.9%, Arsenal's from 59.9% to 60.1% and Liverpool's from 72.9% to 72.7%, on reported or relayed wage splits.
• At nine other clubs only the range moves. Because the possible saving on this season's loans is larger than the possible add-back for last season's, the bottom of each range falls further than the top: Chelsea's range is now 83.0% to 97.2%, Brighton's 70.7% to 82.1%.
• Tottenham's saving on this season's loans is held out for now, because the club's own wage figures already include part of it. Newcastle's is held out because last season's loans could not be checked against a source we accept.

What moved: Nottingham Forest 102.3% → 99.3% (range 90.5 to 102.0%); Manchester United 57.3% → 56.9%; Arsenal 59.9% → 60.1%; Liverpool 72.9% → 72.7%; ranges only: Chelsea, Brighton, Brentford, Bournemouth, Aston Villa, Crystal Palace, Manchester City, Everton, Tottenham; league 75.8% → 75.6%

Also moved:Nottingham ForestManchester UnitedArsenalLiverpoolChelseaBrightonBrentfordBournemouthAston VillaCrystal PalaceEvertonTottenham

Last season's commercial revenue is not in any club's filed accounts yet, so we estimate it. Until now each estimate was a judgement of ours. From this release every club's estimate is made by one published method, fitted on 81 filed year-on-year changes, with an assumption range sized from how far such forecasts have missed in the past. Seventeen estimates move. No club changes side of a threshold.

• The rule counts a club's commercial revenue for last season, 2025/26. Those accounts are filed between late 2026 and spring 2027, so for 19 clubs the figure is an estimate. We had built each one by hand, from the last filed figure and our own view of the club's season, and gave each a margin of 7% either way.
• The new method starts from the club's last filed commercial revenue and grows it by a rate that depends only on the size of that revenue: larger commercial businesses have grown more slowly in percentage terms. The rate is 19.3% for a club starting from £20m and 6.8% for one starting from £350m. It is fitted on 81 changes taken from filed accounts, every figure read on the page.
• We chose the method on one test only: how well it would have forecast commercial revenue in past seasons. It was compared with assuming no growth and with a rule that also used each club's own last change. We did not look at what any method did to a club's squad cost ratio, or at which side of 85% it left a club.
• The margin of 7% either way was too narrow. Past forecasts of this kind have missed by more, and by more for small clubs than for large ones. The new assumption range is sized from those misses and is wider on the upper side for smaller clubs. Most clubs' published ranges are wider as a result.
• Four clubs' assumption ranges now span the 85% line: Bournemouth (central figure 85.5%, range 79.5 to 87.8%), Brentford (83.8%, 79.5 to 87.5%), Newcastle (84.7%, 78.9 to 88.6%) and Tottenham (80.4%, 76.4 to 85.6%). For these the estimate does not reliably tell which side of the line the club is on.
• Sunderland and Ipswich Town changed division, where the size rule does not apply. Sunderland's estimate is the typical change of nine promoted clubs and Ipswich's the typical change of six relegated clubs. Both are provisional until their accounts are filed. Coventry City's and Hull City's ratios do not move: the rule counts its £15m minimum for both, and their own commercial revenue is below it. Our estimate of that revenue does change: it is now each club's last filed figure with no growth assumed, provisional until their accounts are filed.
• Manchester United does not move: its 2025/26 figure is filed. Leeds now has the cost of its merchandise taken off, as the rule requires and as at every other club; that cost is estimated, not filed.
• Two figures measured before player trading now sit a fraction of a percentage point from a line: Manchester City 84.9%, from 87.1%, which is 0.1 percentage points below 85%, and Chelsea 114.4%, from 115.5%, which is 0.6 percentage points below 115%. Both margins are smaller than the uncertainty in the commercial estimate, so the estimate does not reliably tell which side of either line the club is on before player trading. No published ratio changes side of a threshold.
• We have withdrawn our estimate of what the five-year amortisation cap would add at Chelsea if it reached the eight registrations signed before it. Two ways of calculating it give different answers, and we will publish neither until they are reconciled.
• From this release we write movements and margins of a ratio in percentage points and sporting deductions in league points, so the two are never confused.
• The forecasts of record are frozen and scored as frozen. The forecasts we published before this release stand in the track record as published and will be scored against the 2025/26 accounts as they were. The estimates of this release are held in its own timestamped record and will be compared with the accounts when they are filed.

What moved: Arsenal 59.5% → 59.9%; Bournemouth 85.5% → 85.5% (range 79.5 to 87.8%); Brentford 84.2% → 83.8%; Brighton 79.5% → 79.1%; Chelsea 93.2% → 92.5%; Everton 73.3% → 73.4%; Nottingham Forest 103.4% → 102.3%; Fulham 104.0% → 102.7%; Ipswich Town 95.8% → 97.1%; Leeds 67.4% → 68.6%; Liverpool 74.0% → 72.9%; Manchester City 75.4% → 73.8%; Newcastle 83.9% → 84.7%; Crystal Palace 78.9% → 78.1%; Sunderland 63.4% → 60.8%; Tottenham 82.3% → 80.4%; Aston Villa 76.0% → 77.4%

Also moved:ArsenalBournemouthBrentfordBrightonChelseaEvertonNottingham ForestFulhamIpswich TownLeedsLiverpoolNewcastleCrystal PalaceSunderlandTottenhamAston Villa

The rule counts European home matches at the higher of two figures, and we had applied only one of them. Three estimates move: Arsenal's the most, to 59.5% from 60.7%.

• For a club in Europe the rule adds gate income for European home matches: the higher of the home matches the club is guaranteed this season and the average number it played at home in that same competition over the last three seasons, rounded up. We had counted the guaranteed matches only. The engine now works out both and takes the higher, for every club.
• Arsenal played 7, 7 and 5 Champions League home matches in the last three seasons, an average of 6.33, which rounds up to 7. We had 4.
• Manchester City played 5 in each of the last three seasons. We had 4.
• Brighton's play-off home leg in August 2026 is a guaranteed home match of this season's competition, so its count is 4. We had 3.
• We read 'the relevant competition' as the one the club is in this season: a past season in a different European competition does not count. On the other reading, any European competition, Aston Villa and Liverpool would also move; that case is set out in our method note.

What moved: Arsenal 60.7% → 59.5%; Manchester City 75.7% → 75.4%; Brighton 79.9% → 79.5%

Also moved:ArsenalBrighton

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:FulhamChelseaBrightonCrystal PalaceCoventry CityBrentford

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 PalaceEvertonFulhamHull CityIpswich TownLeedsLiverpoolManchester 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 ForestBournemouthCoventry CityFulhamBrentfordLeeds

A further check of the transfer records the previous update could not settle: contract extensions, contract lengths, signing dates and fees, each now taken from the clubs' own announcements or the most reliable reports. Ten published ratios move, by between 0.1 and 0.6 points; no club crosses the 85% or 115% threshold.

• Crystal Palace's ratio rises from 73.0% to 73.6%, mainly because Queens Park Rangers are owed a fifth of Palace's profit on Eberechi Eze, which the figures had counted as Palace's.
• Bournemouth's falls from 83.5% to 83.0%, because Illia Zabarnyi cost more than recorded (27.7m, as Dynamo Kyiv have stated).
• Everton's falls from 72.0% to 71.7%, after Beto's and Iliman Ndiaye's fees and Youssef Chermiti's basic fee were corrected.
• Contract lengths and extensions were corrected where the clubs announced them, moving Leeds to 64.8%, Brighton to 77.8% and Aston Villa to 71.9%; smaller moves follow for Fulham, Arsenal, Manchester City and Sunderland.
• Three records were wrong in kind. A Brentford player recorded as released is still under contract, an Aston Villa player recorded as bought came through the academy, and a Bournemouth signing was dated a year early.
• Where no reliable source exists yet, the figure is kept and the most it could matter is recorded.

What moved: Crystal Palace 73.0% → 73.6%; Bournemouth 83.5% → 83.0%; Everton 72.0% → 71.7%; Leeds 64.5% → 64.8%; Brighton 78.1% → 77.8%; Aston Villa 71.7% → 71.9%; Fulham 102.4% → 102.6%; Arsenal 55.7% → 55.8%; Manchester City 74.2% → 74.1%; Sunderland 61.5% → 61.6%

Also moved:Crystal PalaceBournemouthEvertonLeedsBrightonAston VillaFulhamArsenalSunderland

Agents' fees now come from the Football Association's published figures for every club. Thirteen clubs had carried estimates although the FA had published the actual payments in April; with the published figures, thirteen ratios move, by between 0.1 and 2.5 points.

• Nottingham Forest paid agents £12.2m, not the £22m estimated, and its ratio falls by 2.5 points; Bournemouth paid £20.9m, not £15m, and its ratio rises by 1.4 points.
• Manchester City, Tottenham, Arsenal and Everton paid less than estimated and their ratios fall by about a point; Chelsea, Aston Villa, Crystal Palace, Fulham, Brighton and Brentford paid more and theirs rise slightly; Liverpool's falls slightly.
• Newcastle and Manchester United now carry the FA's exact figures rather than rounded ones; their published ratios do not change.
• No club crosses the 85% or 115% threshold.
• Any input still waiting for a source now carries the date that source is expected, and the checks fail once it passes.

What moved: Nottingham Forest 99.4% → 96.9%; Bournemouth 80.8% → 82.2%; Manchester City 75.4% → 74.2%; Tottenham 81.7% → 80.6%; Arsenal 56.8% → 55.8%; Everton 73.3% → 72.3%; Chelsea 87.6% → 88.4%; Aston Villa 70.4% → 71.0%; Crystal Palace 72.8% → 73.2%; Fulham 102.0% → 102.4%; Liverpool 71.5% → 71.2%; Brighton 76.9% → 77.2%; Brentford 81.2% → 81.3%

Also moved:Nottingham ForestBournemouthTottenhamArsenalEvertonChelseaAston VillaCrystal PalaceFulhamLiverpoolBrightonBrentford

The disposal-basis analysis is remeasured on the current baseline of 20 clubs. If the five-year cap also set the book value used for profit on a sale, eight registrations at three clubs would carry £12.0m of extra profit (£9.0m on the four whose contract terms are sourced), and the largest move would be Chelsea's, half a point. No published figure changes.

• Nicolas Jackson is added and is now the largest case, because his 2024 extension to 2033 brings a contract signed before the cut-off within the cap.
• João Félix, Liam Delap, Savinho, Renato Veiga and Mathis Amougou are remeasured on corrected signing, sale and extension dates, and each still qualifies.
• Four registrations (Omari Kellyman, Renato Veiga, Morgan Rogers and Mathis Amougou) rest on estimated contract lengths and are now marked as estimated.
• None of the six clubs added since 20 September has a qualifying sale.
• No club changes compliance state. Chelsea's 87.6% would be 87.1%, and Manchester City and Aston Villa each move by 0.03 points.

Also moved:ChelseaAston Villa

Four new structural gates, and the corrections they forced. The largest: Chelsea’s figure falls from 101.5% to 87.6%, because ten registrations already inside the filed book value were also being charged individually. No new football or accounting events: the data cutoff is unchanged.

• No double amortisation: a registration inside the filed closing book value that is also charged player by player must now be declared and taken out of the pooled balance, or the run refuses. This is the gate that found Chelsea’s ten double-counted registrations.
• A closed list of registration categories. Invented category labels had hidden two Tottenham loan wages, Marmoush and Mudryk, about £20m, from both the loan ledger and the wage bridge.
• A player who has left leaves the pooled book value by the date he was acquired, whatever his label (Reijnders at Manchester City).
• Signings dated on the first of a month just after a year end must be evidenced. About 36 such rows across 14 clubs were sourced or redated to their real dates.
• A fix found by the new tests: the extension audit looked for one specific category name, and a relabel had silently switched it off at Chelsea. It now covers every grandfathered registration.
• Liverpool: Frimpong and Mamardashvili treated as signed after the 31 May 2025 year end, on the announcement evidence. The figure stays at 71.5%, about 69.7% if both were inside the book value; reopened when the 2025/26 accounts are filed.

What moved: Chelsea 101.5% → 87.6%; Manchester City 79.1% → 75.4%; Tottenham 79.5% → 81.7%; Brentford 84.5% → 81.2%; Brighton 77.8% → 76.9%; Bournemouth 80.6% → 80.8%; Leeds 64.5% → 64.6%. Every other club unchanged.

Also moved:ChelseaTottenhamBrightonBrentfordBournemouthLeedsLiverpool

Two Manchester City sale fees taken to their reported base rather than an estimate, on both clubs’ ledgers.

• McAtee to Nottingham Forest: an estimated £25m (Forest’s rejected opening bid) replaced by the reported £22m base, on City’s sale and Forest’s purchase alike.
• Heskey to Köln: £7m, which included add-ons, replaced by the £2.1m base.
• Two duplicate placeholder rows removed from City’s squad census.

What moved: Manchester City 78.9% → 79.1%; Nottingham Forest 99.6% → 99.4%.

Also moved:Nottingham Forest

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 PalaceEvertonFulhamHull CityIpswich TownLeedsLiverpoolManchester UnitedNewcastleNottingham ForestSunderlandTottenham

Sunderland added, and a full reconciliation against the 18 September baseline: every movement since then explained and recorded here, and one missing Newcastle sale added.

• Newcastle: Sean Longstaff’s £12m sale to Leeds United in July 2025 was missing from the ledger, found by the Leeds rebuild’s cross-club check.
• Movements since 18 September, each already corrected in its article with a dated note, recorded here: Manchester City 82.1% → 78.9% (players’ share of wages widened after a player-by-player estimate came in lower, and two contract extensions found); Everton 72.4% → 73.5% (fee sweep, and two four-year contracts from the club’s own announcements); Chelsea 104.0% → 103.1% (extension audit).
• A stale register of claims made in the Forest article was cleared, and one remaining superlative removed.

What moved: Sunderland enter at 61.5% (range 57.4 to 65.5%); Newcastle 77.3% → 76.7%.

Also moved:SunderlandNewcastleEvertonChelsea

Every transfer fee in the series checked against a source that publishes the base and the add-ons separately, and the squad-share comparison rebuilt on a like-for-like basis. Engine code unchanged; the data moved.

• Twenty-two fees were stored at the total rather than the base, across eight clubs of fourteen: Bournemouth 5, Manchester City 4, Chelsea 3, Crystal Palace 3, Newcastle 3, Everton 2, Arsenal 1, Aston Villa 1. Six clubs were clean, and all six were built from detailed window records rather than season summaries.
• The largest proportional case was a deal where 70% of the reported fee was contingent: £3m guaranteed against a £10m reported package.
• One earlier correction had run the wrong way, moving a base to a total against a club announcement of a record fee. Both sides of that transaction now move together.
• A loan fee included inside a reported transfer fee was being capitalised. A loan fee is an expense of the season it is paid.
• The independent per-player wage build was being compared against the wrong base. It is a 2026/27 squad snapshot, while the share here is taken of an FY25 filed cost and then rolled forward, so dividing one by the other gives the share plus the roll-forward. Netting it off reverses two of four conclusions: Arsenal needs no recut, and Tottenham is outside its range on the low side rather than inside it.
• Manchester City’s squad-share range widened from 80 to 88% to 70 to 88%, reaching the independent build without moving the centre onto it, because the two figures allocate the same filed total by different methods and the disagreement bounds the range rather than relocating it.
• The range widening stands. Its evidential basis has since been narrowed: a per-head comparison cited in support of it is no longer treated as valid evidence, because City’s filed football headcount combines players with football staff and is not a player-only denominator.
• Two of this series’ own ledgers disagreed on the same transfer, £48m against £47m. Nothing in the engine compares a purchase row with the counterparty’s disposal row, so a cross-ledger gate is the outstanding build.

What moved: The fee sweep moved eight club ratios by between −1.3 and +0.13 points, with no compliance-state change. Manchester City moved separately from 82.1% to 79.3%, mainly because the squad-share range widened from 80 to 88% to 70 to 88%.

Also moved:ArsenalAston VillaBournemouthChelseaCrystal PalaceEvertonNewcastleTottenham

A gap in the version history. The engine is stamped V2R and its own changelog stops at V2N, so three intermediate versions have no entry.

• Tottenham was added as the fourteenth club and its wage roll-forward was corrected from 36% of base to 14%, against a series range of −6% to +13%. That moved the club from 86.4% to 78.8% and reversed the threshold conclusion of a published article. A quantity that is never compared with anything is not validated by the care taken over its inputs.
• The temporary-transfer treatment was requantified after the bridge correction, giving 78.8% at Tottenham and 79.3% at Manchester City on the adopted reading.
• The remaining changes in this range are recorded in the engine repository and have not yet been written up here. They are reconstructed from the repository rather than from memory, which is why this entry names the gap instead of filling it.

Also moved:Tottenham

A loan carrying an unconditional obligation to buy was tagged as conditional with the condition unresolved, which contradicted the engine’s own stated rule.

• The Guidance to Rule A.1.22 leaves amortisation with the lending club during a temporary transfer, so City retain the registration and the £11.8m annual charge and the £50m does not enter the 2026/27 disposal pool.
• The treatment is a matter of timing. The registration moves in 2027/28, when City lose the charge and recognise the disposal.
• The article had carried the alternative as a sensitivity rather than as the answer.

What moved: 82.1% → 79.9% at the time, and Tottenham 88.0% → 86.4%

Also moved:Tottenham

Rule A.1.29(e) was applied inconsistently across the league. Two structural faults, both in the same provision.

• The round-of-16 reference is a property of the competition rather than the club, and had been entered club by club. Arsenal carried £75m for the Champions League while Manchester City and Aston Villa carried zero for the same competition, turning a three-way maximum into a two-way one.
• The first two amounts count only seasons in the competition qualified for, so a club moving between competitions cannot carry the old one’s money into the new one.

What moved: Aston Villa 74.0% → 70.3%, Manchester City republished at 82.1%

Also moved:Aston VillaArsenal

Rebuilt from the filed annual report rather than from secondary reporting. The club had been published on a wage base that was wrong, and the first correction was also wrong.

• The figure carried as total staff costs was employee costs plus the £169.5m amortisation charge, so a squad share was taken of a base that already contained amortisation, and amortisation was then added again.
• The second attempt treated the filed total as a wage line and added employer costs twice.
• The filed total employee cost in Note 7 is £408.4m: wages £355.4m, social security £51.1m, pension £1.4m, share-based payments £0.5m, across 670 employees of whom 252 are football staff.
• Build from the filed document. A summary written by somebody else may define its terms differently and will not say so.

What moved: 88.4% → 83.2% → 82.1% regulatory

Manchester City unpublished on a contaminated wage base.

• The tell was in the engine’s own data throughout. Employer social security and pension run at 12.5 to 15.7% of the wage line at every club in the series, and the contaminated base implied 41.7%. Nobody had read across the column.
• That comparison is now the gate’s logic, so it runs on every club on every build rather than depending on somebody thinking to look.

What moved: 88.4% → 83.2%

Twelfth club published, built from the registrations roll-forward in Note 12, which reconciles on all three identities so the residual is forced rather than estimated.

• The whole summer 2025 senior departure side was missing: De Bruyne, Gündoğan, Ederson, Carson, McAtee. A source that misses a departure leaves no trace.
• Twelve apparent arrivals were new scholarship registrations. Read as signings they invent twelve moves into one window.
• Three registrations appeared on the senior 25 for the first time without being signed, having aged out of Under-21 eligibility.

What moved: published at 88.4% / 103.4%

A departure dated before a squad list the player appears on is wrong, and it had happened at three clubs. Prompted by asking whether an error found at one club also sat in the eleven already published.

• Ninety-two departures carry no disposal row. Most are legitimate releases and expiries; nine had no stated reason at all.
• Six departures mention a loan in their note. Five were genuine loan-then-sale. One was not.

Also moved:Aston VillaChelsea