The Premier League’s proposed anchoring cap is supposed to be a safety rail; instead, it has become the latest fault line in a league that has grown used to spending its way out of trouble. By tying what the richest clubs can spend to what the poorest receive, the proposal aims to redraw the financial map of English football without draining the drama that made it the global game’s main event.
What the anchoring cap actually does
Under “top-to-bottom anchoring”, a club’s total squad spend–wages, amortised transfer fees and agent payments–would be capped at no more than five times the central payment received by the league’s bottom side in the previous season.
With Southampton earning just over million in central distributions as the Premier League’s bottom club, the cap would sit at roughly million, acting as a hard ceiling on football costs for the wealthiest teams. Alongside this, a Squad Cost Ratio would limit spending on squad costs to 85 percent of a club’s own revenue, bringing the league closer to UEFA’s 70 percent squad-cost rules and replacing the current loss-based PSR model.
This is a subtle but important shift: instead of telling clubs how much they can lose over three years, the Premier League would start telling them how much they can spend in any given season. Anchoring is the dramatic headline, but in practice it would sit on top of the revenue-based ratio, acting as an outer guardrail rather than the day‑to‑day rule most clubs feel.
Pressure on the Premier League bigwigs
On paper, anchoring is aimed squarely at the traditional big spenders, the clubs that have treated every summer like an arms race. Internal projections suggest that, at a multiple of five, only a handful of sides, think Manchester City and perhaps one or two others, would immediately brush up against the proposed cap, even before you factor in the 85 percent revenue rule and UEFA’s own limits.
Yet that is exactly the point: the anchoring model is designed to stop the very top of the league from stretching its financial advantage even further, particularly as broadcast and commercial deals grow over time.
For owners used to flexing financial muscle, that feels restrictive, even if current wage bills and amortisation costs still sit well below the theoretical ceiling. Clubs such as Manchester City and Manchester United argue that if they generate huge revenues and can stay within profitability rules, they should not be pinned to the spending power of the league’s weakest earners.
Will spending patterns really change?
If anchoring passes, the most obvious shift would be in how aggressively the richest clubs plan long‑term wage commitments and squad churn. Locking multiple stars on improved contracts, adding expensive depth and rolling the dice on big amortised transfer packages would all have to be modelled against a hard, external cap that moves only when the bottom club’s central income does.
Instead of simply out‑earning and out‑spending domestic rivals, the top clubs would need to prioritise value and timing, perhaps holding back in one window to create room in another. The transfer market at the very top end could cool slightly, with more pressure to sell well, lean into academy pathways and avoid stacking up too many highly paid squad players who rarely start.
Lower down the Premier League table, the impact would be softer and more psychological than immediate. Most smaller clubs are nowhere near spending five times the bottom club’s central revenues on squad costs, and for them the 85 percent revenue rule is far more likely to bite.
Who wants anchoring, and who doesn’t?
When the concept was first explored, 16 Premier League clubs backed detailed analysis of top‑to‑bottom anchoring, with only Manchester United, Manchester City, and Aston Villa voting against. That early divide has hardened into a clearer split: many mid‑table and lower‑half sides see anchoring as protection against a future in which a handful of global brands simply disappear over the financial horizon.
Over recent weeks, however, resistance has grown. Manchester City, Manchester United, and Aston Villa remain vocal opponents, joined by Arsenal as a late sceptic, while agencies and the Professional Footballers’ Association have floated the prospect of legal action, arguing that hard caps on spending will effectively cap player earnings too.
Some ambitious “project” clubs such as Brighton, Brentford, Bournemouth and Crystal Palace are also wary of the new spending ratios, fearing they may hard‑wire existing revenue gaps into the sporting hierarchy.
Arsenal’s late change of heart
Arsenal’s U‑turn has added genuine jeopardy to the vote and underlined how politically charged the debate has become. Once seen as one of anchoring’s driving forces, the Gunners have cooled on the idea in recent weeks, particularly after the departure of former executive vice‑chairman Tim Lewis, a key internal advocate of tighter financial controls.
Reports suggest Arsenal now fear being boxed in just as they are re‑establishing themselves as Premier League title contenders and Champions League regulars, needing headroom to reward core players like Bukayo Saka, William Saliba and Declan Rice while still adding elite reinforcements.
The worry is simple: if Premier League clubs are chained to the bottom club’s central income, their ability to compete financially with Real Madrid, Bayern Munich or Paris Saint‑Germain, who operate in leagues without such a hard domestic anchor, could be compromised.
Arsenal’s switch does not just rob anchoring of a key cheerleader; it emboldens other fence‑sitters to ask whether the Premier League is about to voluntarily blunt its own edge in Europe. In a landscape where every marginal gain matters, that is a powerful argument in a shareholders’ room filled with owners who have invested billions to reach this level.
Big Six versus the strugglers
Set at five times the bottom club’s central share, the anchoring cap is almost tailor‑made to define the outer limit of what the “Big Six” can do rather than to squeeze the teams fighting relegation. For the likes of Manchester City, Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Tottenham, it creates a shared ceiling that largely ignores how far ahead they are commercially of the rest of the league.
In the short term, modelling suggests only the very biggest spenders would need to trim or restructure their plans to stay beneath the hard cap, while everyone else would still be governed primarily by their own revenues and the 85 percent rule.
Over a longer horizon, though, the mechanism effectively slows the rate at which the richest Premier League clubs can turn new global income into on‑pitch dominance, because any new TV deal or sponsorship boom that lifts their finances does nothing to move the anchor unless it also lifts the bottom club’s central share.
For the lowest spenders, anchoring functions more as a comfort blanket than a real constraint, a guarantee that the league’s giants will never be allowed to spend ten times their central income in a single season. The flip side is that if they want to grow aggressively, their own limit remains dictated by their relatively modest revenues, not by a league‑wide floor.
Is anchoring good for the Premier League?
Whether anchoring is “good” depends on which problem you think the Premier League needs to solve most urgently. For those concerned about another financial crisis, about clubs over‑reaching and collapsing or about widening inequality between the very top and the rest, a hard spending cap linked to the bottom club’s income is a neat, easily explained safeguard. It promises predictability for owners, a more sustainable cost base and at least the appearance of competitive balance.
For those focused on European dominance and the league’s global brand, the calculus is harsher. If England’s most powerful clubs face constraints that Real Madrid, Barcelona or PSG do not, the fear is that the Premier League’s golden age of European supremacy could slowly erode as its best‑resourced teams are nudged towards caution
Premier League shuts asset-sale loophole with new 85% squad-cost cap
Premier League clubs have approved new financial rules that ban them from using internal asset sales to boost revenue for squad-spending tests. From next season, proceeds from selling fixed assets such as hotels or women’s teams to related companies will no longer count toward squad cost calculations, closing off a popular method of inflating income on paper.
The changes specifically target a loophole highlighted by Chelsea’s sale of two Stamford Bridge hotels and similar transactions involving women’s teams at Aston Villa and Everton. Clubs voted 14-6 in favour of adopting the new Squad Cost Ratio system, which replaces the Profit and Sustainability Rules with a clearer spending cap model.
Domestic teams will be limited to spending 85% of football-related revenue on squad costs, while clubs in UEFA competitions must meet a stricter 70% limit. A 30% rolling allowance creates a buffer above the 85% “green” threshold, with escalating fines and automatic points deductions if the higher “red” limit is breached
Conclusion: a safer league, or a smaller one?
Anchoring is, ultimately, a bet on restraint in a competition built on relentless escalation. By yoking the richest clubs’ squad spending to the bottom club’s central income and pairing it with an 85 percent revenue‑based squad‑cost rule, the proposal would almost certainly make the Premier League more financially stable and predictable than the current PSR era.
It is hard to imagine another wave of uncontrolled losses or an unchecked arms race if the outer limit of spending sits around – million and only moves when the league as a whole lifts its TV and prize‑money pot. In that sense, anchoring looks beneficial for the league’s collective health and for most of its members, especially those who worry that one bad gamble could send them into administration.
Where it does clearly bite is at the very top. Over time, the mechanism would act as a genuine brake on the Big Six’s ability to convert ever‑growing commercial power into squad spending, forcing them to think harder about efficiency, timing and talent development. It does not eliminate their advantages, but it does curtail their freedom to out‑spend everyone, every year, and that is precisely why the issue has become so divisive on the eve of the vote.
