How did Tottenham manage to spend almost €300M in one day? Financial strength of the Premier League explained under the SCR
Looser cost rules are driving the tension in the Premier League: under the Squad Cost Ratio (SCR), clubs can allocate up to 85% of revenue to team costs, with a tolerance of up to 115%—far from UEFA's 70% cap.
What is happening in England right now is proof of how far the Premier League lags the rest of Europe when it comes to financial strength. From record transfers to the number of most expensive players on the planet, England's league seems like a world apart.
Numbers that the continent can't match:
- Last trading summer, the Premier League's 20 clubs spent around £3.087 billion (over €3.5 billion)—more than the Bundesliga, La Liga, Ligue 1, and Serie A combined.
- This is more than the nearly £1.96 billion released in summer 2024.
- An estimated 40% of the world's most valuable players are now in England teams.
In this new transfer window, the gust is immediately intense. The more than €70M that Milan shelled out for Gonçalo Ramos from Paris Saint-Germain looks small compared to the speed and breadth of movement in the Premier League. On the list of big hauls, including midfielder Elliot Anderson's move to Manchester City for €136M. There are also cases with three-figure prices that usually end up in England: Isak and Wirtz at Liverpool (estimated at €145M and €125M), Caicedo at Chelsea (€116M), and Rice at Arsenal; while Pogba also became an example of a triple-digit fee when Manchester United paid Juventus €105M.
The question now: how did the spending explode—as it did with Tottenham who raised almost €300M in a single day? Spurs landed Sandro Tonali from Newcastle for an estimated €116M—the most expensive Italian in history—followed by Portuguese Mateus Fernades from West Ham for around €99M, and Van Hecke from Brighton for around €58M. In total, almost €300M for three players in just a few hours.
<figure style="margin:2rem 0;overflow:hidden;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;background:#f9f9f9"><img src="https://tmw-storage-auto.tcccdn.com/storage/tuttomercatoweb.com/img_notizie/thumb3/1c/1c26e5ef04e1a54dea8c35b774e03f7c-24266-oooz0000.jpeg" alt="Image" style="width:100%;height:auto;object-fit:contain" loading="lazy" /></figure>The answer: the new policy called the Squad Cost Ratio (SCR).
- Starting this season, SCR is being implemented in the Premier League, which is based on UEFA rules but with a more relaxed scope.
- It allows clubs to allocate up to 85% of their income to “team costs” (including salary and transfer costs).
- In certain situations, the tolerance can reach up to 115%.
- Meanwhile, UEFA's cap for teams participating in European tournaments is only 70%.
This means that Premier League clubs—especially those not involved in continental competitions—have greater spending power than their rivals in other leagues. On paper, the new rules were created to bring competition closer within England. But it is clear that as the first five days of the market tick by, there are already fears among other European leagues: the gap could widen in the two months remaining in the window.
In this direction, not only the volume of transactions increases; it also increases the likelihood that a large percentage of the most expensive and in-demand players will remain in England—many of whom will also be the center of attention in the coming years on the world stage.
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