Sunderland: 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:ArsenalChelseaCrystal PalaceTottenhamCoventry CityNottingham ForestBournemouthBrentfordBrightonFulham

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:BrightonIpswich TownLeedsHull City

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:ChelseaManchester CityAston VillaManchester United

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 TownLeedsLiverpoolManchester CityNewcastleCrystal PalaceTottenhamAston Villa

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 CityManchester UnitedNewcastleNottingham ForestTottenham

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 VillaFulhamArsenalManchester City

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 CityManchester UnitedNewcastleNottingham ForestTottenham

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:NewcastleManchester CityEvertonChelsea

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:LeedsCoventry CityHull CityIpswich Town