The price of a player

The charge sheet, 2010 – 2026

points deductionfinesettlementEuropean exclusionno verdict yet

Shaded row: undecided as of 2026-08-13. “Season” is the season each case chiefly belongs to; several verdicts and appeals landed later, as the stories below explain.

Every case, in words

Portsmouth · 2009-10 · −9 pts

The automatic insolvency penalty, not a spending-rule breach: nine points in March 2010, relegation, and a warning the league never forgot. A second administration in 2012 cost a further ten points in the Championship. Portsmouth are why every later debate about deductions distinguishes “went broke” from “broke the rules”.

Manchester City · 2013-14 · €60m fine

FFP’s first enforcement round, settled in May 2014: a €60m fine with €40m returnable on compliance, a Champions League squad capped at 21, and wage and net-spend limits. The template — settle, restrict, refund — defined UEFA enforcement for a decade.

Paris Saint-Germain · 2013-14 · €60m fine

The mirror of City’s settlement, and the origin of the fair-market-value question that still runs through the rules: UEFA’s auditors re-priced a €200m-a-year sponsorship from the owner’s state, and the shortfall became a breach. Same sanction package as City, same day.

AC Milan · 2018-19 · one season out of Europe

The rare exclusion: after CAS sent an earlier ban back to UEFA as disproportionate, Milan consented to sitting out the 2019-20 Europa League — trading one European season for a clean slate. Proof the ultimate FFP sanction existed, and how hard it was to land.

Manchester City · 2019-20 · €10m fine

UEFA banned City from Europe for two seasons and fined them €30m; CAS overturned the ban in July 2020, finding most alleged breaches “either not established or time-barred”, and cut the fine to €10m — kept for obstructing the investigation. The time-bar, not vindication on the merits, is why the same underlying allegations could return as the Premier League’s 115 charges.

Wigan Athletic · 2019-20 · −12 pts

The automatic twelve, applied at the end of 2019-20 when appeal failed — turning a comfortable mid-table finish into relegation on the final reckoning. The case that showed the insolvency penalty operating with no regard for how the insolvency happened.

Sheffield Wednesday · 2020-21 · −12 pts → −6 (halved on appeal, November 2020)

The stadium-to-the-owner manoeuvre: selling the ground to a company controlled by the chairman created paper profit that kept the P&S numbers inside the limit — if it landed in the right accounting year. The commission found it didn’t. Deducted twelve, halved to six on appeal; the sale itself was not the offence, the timing was.

Derby County · 2020-21 · −9 pts · £100k fine

The guide’s accounting section, weaponized: Derby’s bespoke policy assumed players would retain resale value at contract end, so early-year amortization shrank and losses looked smaller. A commission cleared the policy; the EFL won on appeal in May 2021 — residual values could not be baked into the cost model. A £100,000 fine, restated accounts, and once the honest numbers existed, a further nine-point deduction (plus three suspended) in November 2021 for the P&S breaches they revealed.

Derby County · 2021-22 · −12 pts

The automatic twelve, on top of the accounting nine: twenty-one points gone in one season, relegation to League One, and the full arc — creative amortization to administration — complete in six years. The transfer market’s cautionary tale, end to end.

Reading · 2021-22 · −6 pts

Six points in November 2021 with six more suspended against an agreed business plan — and the suspended six duly landed in April 2023 when the plan was breached. The two-stage Reading case is the clearest precedent that a P&S sanction can come with a probation order attached.

Juventus · 2022-23 · −10 pts

Italy’s prosecutors read the swap-deal logic of instant profit and drew the line: matched exchanges at invented valuations, they charged, were accounting fiction. An initial fifteen-point deduction was annulled, re-heard, and returned as ten in May 2023 — enough to cost Juventus Champions League qualification on the final table.

Manchester City · 2022-23 · none — case undecided

Charged in February 2023; a twelve-week independent-commission hearing closed in December 2024; as of 13 August 2026 no decision has been published. City deny every charge, and until the commission rules there is no finding of any kind — the speculated sanctions, from points to expulsion, are commentary. The scale is the story: most of the charge sheet is about the truthfulness of the accounts every spending rule depends on.

Juventus · 2023-24 · €20m fine · one season out of Europe

The continental sequel: UEFA excluded Juventus from the 2023-24 Conference League for breaking their settlement, with a €20m fine of which €10m was unconditional. One set of books, two regulators, two punishments — the double jeopardy that isn’t, because domestic and European rules are separate regimes.

Everton · 2023-24 · −10 pts → −6 (reduced on appeal, February 2024)

The case that taught the public PSR exists. An independent commission assessed Everton’s adjusted loss at £124.5m — £19.5m over — and deducted ten points in November 2023, the largest sporting sanction in Premier League history to that date; the appeal board found legal errors and substituted six. The answer to “why did Everton lose points for spending money”: they didn’t — they lost points for losing £19.5m more than the rules allow, after every permitted deduction.

Everton · 2023-24 · −2 pts

The rolling window’s double bite: two of the three loss-making seasons in this assessment were the same ones already punished, and the commission gave two points of mitigation for exactly that overlap. Two more points in April 2024 — an appeal was lodged, then withdrawn — making eight for the season, and Everton still stayed up.

Nottingham Forest · 2023-24 · −4 pts

The promoted club’s version of the rule: two of Forest’s three assessment years were Championship seasons, so their ceiling was £35m + £13m + £13m = £61m, and they were £34.5m over it. Four points in March 2024, appeal dismissed in May. The case that showed the limit is not one number but a formula — and that keeping a promotion-winning squad together has a price the rules can count.

Chelsea · 2024-25 · €31m fine

The new rules’ first big catch, July 2025: a four-year settlement with a €31m unconditional fine and up to €60m more hanging on compliance — plus a registration restriction under which new signings could only join Chelsea’s European squad list if the transfer balance was positive. Notable because UEFA’s earnings rule refused what the Premier League’s had allowed: profits from selling a hotel and the women’s team to sister companies did not count.

Aston Villa · 2024-25 · €11m fine

A three-year settlement announced alongside Chelsea’s: €11m unconditional, €15m conditional, and the same European-list registration restriction. Together the two cases marked the moment English clubs’ PSR-era engineering met UEFA’s stricter definitions of income.

Leicester City · 2025-26 · −6 pts

The jurisdiction saga, concluded. Leicester beat the original 2024 PSR charge on a drafting technicality — their accounting year ended after relegation, so the Premier League commission had no reach — and the league closed the loophole. But the 2023-24 Championship season breached the EFL’s £83m mixed-window threshold by £20.8m, jurisdiction passed back on promotion, and in February 2026 a commission deducted six points, applied to their 2025-26 Championship campaign and upheld on appeal that April. Escaping on procedure, twice relegated meanwhile, and sanctioned anyway.

Sheffield Wednesday · 2025-26 · −18 pts

The automatic twelve for administration plus six more from separate disciplinary proceedings over the unpaid wages that preceded it — eighteen points gone from the 2025-26 season, and a three-year ban for the outgoing owner from any EFL directorship. The newest row on the sheet is the oldest story on it: the rules that punish losing money are downstream of the ones that make sure people get paid.

Nine clubs incl. Chelsea, Villa, Newcastle, Forest · 2025-26 · fine

June 2026, the 70% cap’s first real harvest: nine clubs over the line for calendar 2025, four of them English, with fines scaled to the overshoot — Strasbourg’s €25m (€13m unconditional) the largest. Squad-cost enforcement is arithmetic rather than litigation: no commissions, no years of appeals, just a ratio and an invoice.