There is no perfect answer when it comes to Premier League clubs and Financial Fair Pllay.
What is for sure though, is that the current situation is a sham.
Premier League clubs have moved from PSR (Profit and Sustainability Rules) to SCR (Squad Cost Ratio).
In doing so, they have achieved the impossible.
Yes, the shift to SCR appears to have made things even worse, in terms of any of the other clubs looking to close the gap in terms of long-term competitivity with the usual half dozen.
It seems bizarre that it is never talked about but only nine months ago a huge opportunity was missed.
Why not have rules in place that allow all 20 Premier League clubs to spend exactly the same amount of money in a particular season?
What could be fairer than allowing every club to spend the same maximum amount of money on the squad: on wages, transfer fees, whatever?
If everyone is allowed to spend the same, why would that be unfair?
In November 2025, the then 20 Premier League clubs met and had three Financial Fair Play proposals to vote on, proposed changes to kick in for the 2026/27 season and beyond.
The three votes were on: top to bottom anchoring (TBA), squad cost ratio (SCR) and the sustainability and system resilience (SSR).
SCR passed 14 to six, just scraping through with the minimum 14 votes needed.
SSR passed unanimously.
Before those two votes though was the TBA (top to bottom anchoring), this received only seven votes in favour, with 12 against and one abstention.
The top-to-bottom anchoring (TBA) would have limited any club’s spending on squad costs to five times the amount received in central income by the league’s bottom club.
In other words, all Premier League clubs would have had the same limit on the amount of cash they could spend on the squad.
What we got instead was SCR, each Premier League club able to spend 85% of their individual club revenues on squad costs. So if you have double the revenues of another club, you are allowed to spend twice as much as them on wages and transfer fees.
UEFA already has their own SCR system and so that would have been a different fight/argument for Premier League clubs but the fact remains that a massive opportunity was missed.