Premier League clubs have blocked a proposed salary cap, instead approving new financial regulations that will limit spending to 85% of club revenue and introduce stricter financial health checks to replace the existing PSR rules.
According to a report from The Mirror, Premier League clubs have voted decisively against the controversial proposal known as Top-to-Bottom Anchoring (TBA).
This measure would have functioned as a hard salary cap, limiting every club’s spending based on the lowest-earning team’s revenue distribution.
However, a major overhaul of spending rules was approved with the implementation of the new Squad Cost Ratio (SCR) guidelines. This new system is set to replace the current Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR), which have recently led to sanctions against clubs.
The SCR regulations will cap a club’s on-pitch expenditure at 85% of its total football revenue plus net profit from player sales. This limit governs “football costs,” which include player wages, transfer fee amortisation, and coaching staff expenses.
Clubs are provided with a multi-year allowance of 30% that they can use to exceed the primary 85% spending threshold. Clubs utilizing this flexibility will incur a financial levy, and exhausting the full allowance will result in a sporting sanction.
The new Premier League SCR rules bring the division’s financial system closer to the model already employed by UEFA, whose equivalent rules operate with a stricter 70% threshold.
The shareholders also voted unanimously in favour of the new Sustainability and Systemic Resilience (SSR) rules.
This system is designed to provide comprehensive monitoring of a club’s financial health across short, medium, and long-term horizons, mandating three specific financial health assessments: the Working Capital Test, the Liquidity Test, and the Positive Equity Test.
These newly approved financial control systems, SCR and SSR, are slated to officially come into effect at the start of the 2026/27 season.
The old Profitability and Sustainability Rules will remain active for the duration of the current 2025/26 campaign.