Have been seeing a lot of speculation with linking players to Saudi clubs. I don’t think most understand that the Saudi clubs would have to sell before they could buy as they are already at the cap of over 21 aged foreign players.
I would take any links you see with a pinch of salt.

Looking at the FY23 account we see that Newcastle put merchandise in the commercial section. If we deduct the deals we know Noon -£8m, Fun88 -£8m and Castore -£5m = £21m. This puts the merchandise/ shirt sales quite low on the list.

For the sales from FY23 we can see Newcastle is no where to be seen on the list. Which points to the fact Newcastle has a big local support but outside the UK the numbers just drop off. Which makes me think they won’t hit the sales target.

Doing a bit of research on the matter of the “Elite” clubs and it looks for 25/26 that Newcastle is still on the list. They are adding more clubs to the list.
I also don’t see Newcastle hitting the shirt sales to make the extra £5m. Deal is £30m + £5m after 350k sales. Newcastle average is 175k

Correct, clubs won’t want to spend most of the cap in January. Plus with players leaving when their contracts run out will give clubs more of a cap to spend. Plus you will know where you sit and which cap you have in the summer compared to the winter.

One last bit to give some more context.

As we can see Newcastle’s total wages (all staff and players) site at 75% but just player wages is down to 59%. This gives us small idea on the cost of the staff (including the manager)So total wages went up from FY22 to FY23 by £14m Player wages went up £8m

If they don’t qualify then they have an even bigger cap. Which should allow them to invest quite well. The issue with the club will be in 26/27 when the income would drop in the FY25 accounts. While the club added Adidas (£30-35m) it will miss European money.

So if Newcastle does qualify for the European spots for 25/26 the cap is based off their income from 23/24 plus the profit from player sales.
So to round it up I think due to the rise in income and the percentage of the wages that Newcastle should be more than fine for SCR in 25/26

Now here is something that I can’t estimate. I have no idea how Newcastle handled player wages after qualifying for the CL. Most clubs just bump up the wages by 20-25%. But I don’t think Newcastle would bump it up by that much.
So do expect to see a rise in player wages but not a massive one.

But there is one key thing we are missing. And that the chart is the percentage of the wages versus income that season. Newcastle made £249m in FY23 and stand to make £320-340m (as an estimate * not including transfers) in FY24. So since the income went up the wages percentage should go down.

Although players more players joined others did leave. And in the summer of 2025 quite a few players contracts are running out. Which should lower wages by enough to give the club some spending power.

Newcastle on the other hand is looking quite healthy. With the wages sitting at 59%. So even with adding the manager plus amortisation for 23/24 the club should still be well under 90% cap. They didn’t qualify for 24/25 but if they do for 25/26 they should still be looking good at 70%.

But looking at clubs like Villa who sit right on that 70% will be finding it tight. You add the managers salary and amortisation and it could push 80%. So if they qualify again for next season they could have to find ways to lower their wages.

So an important part of the rules is that the cap is for wages for players + the manager, agent fees and transfers (which gets put into amortisation).
So unfortunately finding accurate information on manager wages has been almost impossible unless it was announced.

The cap for UEFA started at 90% in 23/24 is currently 80% in 24/25 and will drop for the last time and stay at 70% for the 25/26 season.
The PL has voted to put their cap to 85%. Which allows clubs not in UEFA competitions a chance to spend more.

You might wonder is this important if your team doesn’t qualify for UEFA competitions. And that is that the PL clubs voted in June 2024 to add SCR to the PL to be monitored alongside PSR from the 25/26 season. But both competitions have different caps.

While researching the topic I was able to find this amazing little chart made by UEFA themselves which was part of the 2023 UEFA Brochure. Here it shows the top 20 clubs in Europe (plus a few extra) and their player wage to income ratio.

Todays thread is all about player wages to income ratio. Now this is a very important number due to one set of rules. And that rule is called Squad Cost (SCR). UEFA added this from the beginning of the 23/24 season but the monitoring period was actually from January 1st 2023 to December 31st 2023

It seems PIF knows how important the academy is and I can see them slowly start to ramp investment into it. I think within 3 years the club will be pushing towards £9-10m+ a year.

We know the club is looking at doing more training ground upgrades which could also help the academy.

PIF has done well. It was wise to build over the last 3 years than just throw money at it. This gives the whole set up a chance to evolve. It would have been stupid to just try and match City and Chelsea right from the off without building some foundations. This enables them to grow each year.

As Grey points out it is deducted. As we can see in form 3A. So the club has to know the numbers to get it deducted from the PSR calculations. They also have to know the number for the last 36 months.

It doesn’t look as high as the £15m from Chelsea and City but an estimate of £10m seems reasonable especially with the recent performances of the u18s. And the crop of new young players coming through.

For Arsenal fans the club has been a bit more tighter on information about the academy spend. From the little information I could find the club invested an extra £50m into the academy between 2010 and 2020. But also puts in way above the average or £3.5m.

Remember this per year. So over 3 years is around £15-18m which could be a nice chunk to be deducted to help with the 3 year cycle.

The owners can put more in and the academy could see more of an investment as the club tries to catch up. But the investment so far has been higher than most clubs.

So by looking at the evidence I could find I would be willing to estimate that Newcastle is spending around £5-6m on the academy plus the extras like the £500k gym.

So for PSR could see a deduction of around £5.5m to £6.5m.

It could be higher but wouldn’t think it would be by much maybe £1m more

And here is the big bit. According to Steve Harper who is charge of the academy the club was 10-12 years behind other category 1 academies when he took over. And now is only 2-3 years behind some.

But that other clubs such as City and Chelsea spend around £15m on their academies.

The club in 2023 also spent £500k extra on the academy. Which again would he deducted either on youth development or infrastructure.

Since the takeover the club has seen a 50% increase in staff for the academy. Those costs are also deductible.

Some clubs spend higher with the league average being around £3.5m. This doesn’t sound a lot in the grand scheme of things compared to other costs for a PL club.

Today’s thread is about youth development costs and trying to estimate the possible deductions a club like Newcastle might get for PSR.

Since the takeover in 2021 the academy has drastic investment. Under the rules each category 1 academy must have a minimum of £2.5m spent on it each season.