Premier League's New FFP Farce Is a Licence to Spend

The Premier League Has Just Legalised Financial Doping

Forget points deductions. The Premier League's new financial model, set to replace Profit and Sustainability Rules, is not a crackdown—it is a surrender. By allowing clubs to spend up to 85% of revenue on wages and transfers, the league has handed a licence to the richest owners to inflate their own revenue streams and leave the rest behind.

From PSR to Perverse Incentives

The old PSR regime, for all its flaws, at least attempted to tie spending to genuine football revenue. Everton were docked ten points (later reduced to six) for breaching the £105m loss threshold. Nottingham Forest received a four-point deduction. Those punishments were clumsy and arbitrary, but they were rooted in a principle: clubs should not spend money they do not have.

The new rules, by contrast, are a capitulation to the cartel. They permit spending based on a percentage of revenue, but they do nothing to address the fundamental inequality of revenue generation. Clubs with 60,000-seat stadiums and global commercial portfolios will always outspend those without. The gap becomes not a bug but a feature.

Consider the precedent from Major League Soccer's Designated Player rule. Introduced in 2007 to allow clubs to sign one marquee player outside the salary cap, it was meant to stimulate interest. Instead, it entrenched inequality: the LA Galaxy signed David Beckham, and the rest scrambled for scraps. The Premier League's new rules are a Designated Player rule for everyone—except the designated players are entire squads.

The Revenue Illusion

Here is the central fraud: the new rules treat revenue as an objective measure, but revenue is anything but objective. It can be inflated through associated-party transactions, clever accounting, and the simple advantage of historical success. Manchester City's revenue has doubled since 2016, driven in part by sponsorships from companies linked to their owners. The Premier League's investigation into City's 115 alleged breaches rumbles on, yet the new rules would make such investigations easier to evade.

The result is a system where the cleverest accountants win. Clubs with wealthy owners can sign sponsorship deals with related parties at above-market rates, artificially boosting revenue and therefore spending capacity. The league's attempt to regulate this through 'fair market value' assessments has been about as effective as a chocolate teapot.

Meanwhile, clubs without such owners—Brighton, Brentford, Crystal Palace—are left to compete on merit, which in financial terms means they cannot compete at all. Their revenue is what it is. They cannot invent a £50m training ground sponsorship from a company owned by their chairman.

The Case Against 'Sustainability'

The Premier League's defence is that these rules promote sustainability. That is a fiction. Sustainability is about ensuring clubs do not go bust. But the new rules allow clubs to spend 85% of revenue on wages and transfers, with the remaining 15% covering infrastructure, administration, and debt repayments. For a club like Everton, with a new stadium and a £500m debt burden, that 15% is nowhere near enough.

Instead, the rules will force clubs to sell academy players to balance the books—a practice that rewards the very clubs with the best academies (Chelsea, Manchester City) and penalises those without. It is a system that turns youth development into a financial instrument, not a sporting one.

Everton's punishment for breaching PSR was a points deduction, but their new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock will boost revenue and allow them to spend more—a reward for past overspending, not a deterrent.
Nottingham Forest were docked four points for exceeding the loss limit, yet their owner Evangelos Marinakis continues to invest in players. The new rules will let him do so more freely, as long as revenue grows.
Newcastle United, backed by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, have seen revenue rise sharply since the takeover. Under the new rules, they could spend even more, further distorting competition.

The Counter-Argument: Fair Play?

Supporters of the new rules argue that they are fairer because they allow clubs to spend what they earn, rather than being constrained by a fixed loss limit. They point out that clubs like Leicester City, who won the league in 2016, did so on a modest budget—proof that smart spending can beat big spending.

But Leicester's triumph was a once-in-a-generation anomaly, powered by extraordinary scouting and a perfect storm of underperformance from the big clubs. It has not been repeated. The new rules make it even less likely, because they formalise the advantage of revenue over intelligence. A club like Brentford, praised for its data-driven recruitment, will still be capped at 85% of a revenue that is a fraction of Manchester United's.

Moreover, the rules do not account for owner investment. If a wealthy owner wants to inject cash to build a new stand or improve the academy, that investment is not counted as revenue. It is treated as a subsidy, which is allowed under the rules but does not increase spending capacity. This penalises clubs with ambitious owners who want to invest in infrastructure rather than transfers.

The Verdict: A Predictable Failure

Within two seasons, the new financial rules will be challenged in court by a club that feels unfairly constrained. My prediction: it will be a club like Aston Villa or Newcastle, both of whom have wealthy owners and ambitions to break into the top four. They will argue that the rules are anti-competitive and breach UK competition law.

And they will win. The Premier League's new model is not just flawed; it is legally precarious. It rests on the assumption that revenue is a fair proxy for financial health, but revenue is manipulated by the very clubs it seeks to regulate. The league has replaced one imperfect system with another, and in doing so, it has made the competition less fair, not more.

The only real solution is a hard salary cap, enforced across all leagues, or a radical redistribution of broadcast revenue. Neither is on the table. So we are left with a system that rewards the already successful and punishes the rest. It is not sustainability. It is a licence to spend.