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At a glance: the main differences
| Question | Premier League PSR (through 2025/26) | UEFA financial sustainability rules (2026 edition) |
|---|---|---|
| Who is covered? | Premier League clubs under the League’s domestic rules. | Clubs subject to UEFA licensing and monitoring requirements when seeking UEFA competition participation. |
| Core approach | An adjusted earnings-and-loss test over an assessment period, ordinarily three years. | Three pillars: solvency, stability and cost control. |
| Headline limit | Ordinarily, no more than £105 million of aggregate loss over three years, reduced by £22 million for each season in the Championship during that period. | A squad-cost ratio capped at 70%, alongside separate football-earnings and overdue-payables requirements. |
| What is measured? | Profit or loss after depreciation and interest but before tax, with permitted adjustments. | Relevant squad costs against adjusted operating revenue and specified transfer-related items, plus separate solvency and football-earnings tests. |
| Assessment and monitoring | Ordinarily a rolling three-year PSR assessment. | Quarterly overdue-payables checks; football earnings assessed across three monitoring periods; squad costs calculated for a licence season using specified annual and, for certain items, 36-month inputs. |
| Who decides breaches? | Independent domestic disciplinary proceedings, with appeals where applicable. | UEFA’s Club Financial Control Body (CFCB). |
What PSR tested
Premier League Profitability and Sustainability Rules assessed a club’s PSR Calculation: aggregate adjusted earnings before tax for the relevant assessment period, ordinarily three years. The calculation started from profit or loss after depreciation and interest but before tax; defined add-backs could then adjust the figure. That is why PSR was not a simple limit on wages or transfer spending in one season.
The ordinary ceiling was £105 million of aggregate loss over three years. It was reduced by £22 million for each season the club spent in the Championship during that period, so the permitted amount depended in part on the club’s league status as well as its accounting adjustments. The Premier League’s 2024 PSR statement describes the headline threshold and broad calculation; a club-specific assessment can require the applicable rules and accounts for the relevant period.
What UEFA’s financial rules cover
“UEFA FFP” remains common shorthand, but the broader current framework is UEFA’s Club Licensing and Financial Sustainability Regulations. UEFA describes it as three connected pillars rather than a single spending cap.
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Solvency: pay obligations on time
UEFA’s solvency controls include quarterly checks for overdue payables to other clubs, employees, UEFA, and social and tax authorities. This is distinct from asking whether a club’s spending ratio or multi-period earnings fall within a limit.
Stability: football earnings over monitoring periods
The football-earnings rule compares relevant income and expenses over three monitoring periods and allows a defined acceptable deviation. It is a separate test from the squad-cost ratio, so satisfying the 70% ratio alone does not establish compliance with UEFA’s framework as a whole.
Cost control: the 70% squad-cost ratio
Under the 2026 UEFA regulations, the squad-cost ratio may not exceed 70%. Its numerator includes employee-benefit expenses for relevant persons, amortisation of their registration costs, loan income and expenses, and certain agent, intermediary and connected-party costs. The denominator includes adjusted operating revenue, net profit or loss on disposal of relevant registrations, impairment, and other transfer income or expenses.
It is therefore inaccurate to describe UEFA’s 70% rule simply as “wages divided by revenue.” The regulation uses a defined set of costs and revenues, with specified time treatments: many inputs generally cover 12 months, while certain disposal and other transfer items use a 36-month period prorated to 12 months. The operative 2026 text is in UEFA Regulations Articles 93 and 94.
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Why the PSR and UEFA thresholds cannot be compared as if they were equivalent
PSR asked whether adjusted losses stayed within a multi-year allowance. UEFA’s 70% rule asks whether specified squad costs remain within a share of a defined revenue-and-transfer base. One is not a conversion of the other: a £105 million PSR allowance does not translate into a particular UEFA ratio, and a club under 70% is not automatically clear of UEFA’s other tests.
The rules also differ in reach and administration. PSR applied to Premier League clubs under domestic rules; UEFA’s licensing and monitoring requirements concern clubs seeking UEFA competition participation. The Premier League’s domestic system and UEFA’s competition rules can therefore apply to a club on separate terms, using their own definitions, periods, adjustments and enforcement processes.
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What replaced PSR in the Premier League from 2026/27?
From the beginning of the 2026/27 season, the Premier League replaced PSR with SCR and SSR. The League’s July 2026 explainer says SCR limits on-pitch spending to 85% of football-related revenue and net profit or loss from player sales, with additional headroom under the domestic system. SSR is the accompanying sustainability and systemic-resilience framework.
The Premier League describes SCR as closer in approach to UEFA’s squad-cost ratio than PSR was, because both focus on squad-related costs. But the 85% domestic threshold and UEFA’s 70% limit are not interchangeable caps. Their covered populations, definitions, calculations, exceptions, monitoring and sanctions are set separately. The League says clubs complied with PSR in 2025/26 while SCR operated in shadow without enforcement; the new rules took full effect in 2026/27, while levies are payable only for breaches from 2027/28 onward.
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How breaches are handled
Premier League PSR cases
PSR cases proceeded through an independent Premier League commission and, where appealed, an appeal board. Points deductions have been imposed, but there was no single fixed deduction that automatically followed every breach. For example, an appeal decision confirmed a six-point deduction for Everton for the assessment period ending in 2021/22; that outcome should not be treated as a universal tariff for other cases.
UEFA squad-cost breaches
For a squad-cost breach, the CFCB’s financial measure depends on how far the ratio exceeds the limit and on the club’s breach history in the current and previous three licence seasons. UEFA permanently withholds that measure from competition solidarity and prize money; if those funds are insufficient, the club may have to pay the remainder. A significant breach can also lead to additional sporting or disciplinary measures.
What “FFP” means in this comparison
When people ask, “What is the difference between Premier League PSR and UEFA FFP?”, they are usually comparing the League’s former loss test with UEFA’s wider financial-sustainability framework. For a current-season comparison, the relevant domestic regime is now SCR and SSR, not PSR. For a historical PSR assessment through 2025/26, compare the three-year adjusted-loss calculation with the particular UEFA rule and licence season involved.
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