When the Premier League launched in 1992, it did so with a mission to sell itself to the world.
In the early years, the Premier League made a loss on the sale of its TV rights to overseas markets. Nearly 35 years later, that strategy has paid dividends.
The Premier League now makes more money from international media rights than it does at home. Over the current cycle, the league will distribute over £12bn to its clubs in TV money alone. Last season, when Arsenal ended a 22-year wait to win the title, about £3.15bn was handed out.
And yet, despite revenues which are the envy of just about every other league in every other sport worldwide, Premier League clubs still post enormous losses year in, year out.
The primary cause? An arms race in the transfer and wage markets, which has led clubs like Bournemouth and Brentford to outspend the likes of AC Milan or Borussia Dortmund.
The latest figures from Deloitte’s Annual Review of Football Finance reveal that Premier League clubs lost a total of £948m in 2024-25, the last full published financial year. In 2026-27, the collective deficit may exceed £1bn for the first time.
The Premier League tried to address its deepening losses with PSR (Profit and Sustainability Rules), which limited clubs’ losses to £105m over a rolling three-year period, with certain allowances for things like infrastructure and women’s team spending. But that system has not stopped the bleeding and, as of the beginning of July, has officially been replaced by a new system: SCR, or Squad Cost Ratio rules.
SCR won’t stop losses in the Premier League, says leading football finance expert
Unlike its predecessor, SCR focuses on football spending as a percentage of revenue, not on profit.
The new system, which is similar to the framework in place at European level with which clubs who play in the Champions, Europa and Conference Leagues must comply, limits spending on first-team wages and amortised transfer costs to 85 per cent of turnover plus a three-year average on player sale profits.
If a club earns, say, £200m in revenue and averages £50m in player sale profits over three years, that club is allowed to spend £212.5m on the first team in a single season. There is also some flexibility within the system to allow for overspending in a single season, as long as the excess is compensated for in a future assessment window.
But according to University of Liverpool football finance lecturer Professor Kieran Maguire, SCR is not the silver bullet that will end the Premier League’s gigantic losses because it does not take non-football costs such as administrative expenses and utilities into account.
“SCR only focuses on football costs and the other costs of running the club are being ignored,” the Price of Football author said in conversation with HITC.
“There is an earnings limit at UEFA level but, without PSR, there isn’t one in the Premier League.
“There’s going to be a bigger focus now on raising revenue. Whether or not that revenue comes with a corresponding increase in profit will be of secondary concern for some clubs.
“Some owners want to invest as much on the playing side as possible, so you can raise revenue while sacrificing profit. Revenue is vanity and profit is sanity – but the Premier League is ignoring that for the purposes of SCR.”
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