Is building a new stadium a way around spending rules?

August 1, 2026 No Comments

Is building a new stadium a way around spending rules?Figure caption, Tottenham Hotspur Stadium cost about £1bn and has a fully retractable grass pitch which slides away to reveal an artificial surface used for NFL games and concertsBySimon CassonBBC Sport senior journalistPublished17 minutes agoTottenham fans will want to put last season behind them.

There was another managerial sacking, a spate of injuries to key players, and a nervy 90 minutes on the final day of the season as the ninth-richest club in the world, external narrowly avoided relegation from the Premier League.

A 17th-place finish for the second year running will be cause for concern, to say the least.

Off the pitch though it’s a different story. Tottenham’s finances, despite the team’s poor form, are looking very rosy indeed. This is largely down to their new stadium and the huge revenues it brings.

So what can other clubs learn from their stadium success story? And is building a new home – or renovating an old one – the best way to balance the books?

More matchday revenue

We’ll get to complying with financial rules in a moment, but first let’s start by looking at how much a club like Tottenham are making on matchdays.

“Spurs’ matchday income has increased from £45m in 2016-17, the season they left White Hart Lane, to £126m in 2024-25,” explains football finance expert Kieran Maguire.

“So you’ve less than doubled the size of the stadium and yet the matchday revenue is up by two and a half times.

“What Spurs have done is they’ve created a welcoming environment. So if people are spending an extra 40 to 50 minutes in the stadium itself they’re not just spending time – more importantly they’re spending money.”

The big events bringing in big money

Beyonce, Travis Scott and Bad Bunny performing live at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium — Image caption,

Beyonce, Travis Scott and Bad Bunny are just some of the artists who have performed at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium

Spurs can also host up to 30 non-football events a year at full capacity which is proving to be very beneficial.

Along with major concerts, the club has also hosted NFL games and boxing world title fights – including Anthony Joshua’s heavyweight bout with Oleksandr Usyk in 2021. It’s also been the venue for rugby union’s Saracens hosting Harlequins in the London derby since 2023.

All of this brings in extra commercial revenue – which jumped from £73m in 2016-17 to £277m in 2024-25.

The extra income means the club can then invest more in players like Sandro Tonali, who joined Spurs last month for a club record fee which could reach £100m.

Working within the rules

This summer the Premier League is replacing its profitability and sustainability rules (PSR) with a new financial framework centred on squad-cost ratio (SCR) and sustainability and systemic resilience (SSR).

Put simply, SCR is designed to cap a club’s total spending on its playing squad as a direct percentage of its overall revenue.

Club costs like player wages, transfer amortisation – spreading a transfer fee across the length of a player’s contract for accounting purposes – and agent fees all get taken into account.

Crucially though, stadium infrastructure costs are not included in the SCR calculation.

“In the case of Spurs, their infrastructure costs are around £70m a year – but those are excluded.” says Maguire. “Any money that you invest in stadiums is completely ring-fenced and excluded from your ability to invest in players.

“There’s a separate issue in that stadiums do cost a lot of money. But Spurs borrowed from banks at spectacularly cheap interest rates.”

In other words, for Spurs the pluses of building a new expensive stadium far outweigh the negatives, at least from a financial perspective.

Move or modify?

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Image source, Manchester United F.C.
Image caption,

Manchester United unveiled plans to build a 100,000-seater stadium in 2025 at an estimated cost of £2bn
Image source, Aston Villa F.C.
Image caption,

Redevelopment will increase the overall capacity of Villa Park to over 50,000
Image source, Nottingham Forest F.C.
Image caption,

Nottingham Forest are planning to increase the capacity of the City Ground to more than 50,000
Image source, Leeds United F.C.
Image caption,

Plans to redevelop Leeds United’s Elland Road home have been approved, with capacity set to increase by more than 15,000

Slide 1 of 4, Computer generated image showing Manchester United’s proposed new 100,000-seater stadium., Manchester United unveiled plans to build a 100,000-seater stadium in 2025 at an estimated cost of £2bn

“In order to be competitive, you need to have a significant increase in matchday income,” says Maguire.

“You could only do that from either increasing prices, which isn’t going to go down well, or increasing the size of the stadium with a greater proportion of the tickets going to the non-season ticket fanbase.”

Like Tottenham, Everton and West Ham have also moved to new stadiums – which while financially attractive in the long-term, hasn’t always gone down well with fans.

Other Premier League clubs are looking at their options. Should they stay or go?

Renovation is the cheaper route, but the problem then is where do the team play if they have to move out while building takes place?

The obvious barrier to moving to a new stadium is the huge cost – but there’s also the concern from fans that they’ll lose something by leaving their historical home.

Ratcliffe’s new ‘Theatre of Dreams’ – analysis

Simon Stone

Chief football news reporter

It is clear Sir Jim Ratcliffe wants a new stadium to be the statement around his involvement at Manchester United.

Yet it is equally clear a new build, with a 100,000 capacity and a significant number of corporate areas, would generate far more than United get on a matchday now, which will help drive revenues and improve the senior squad.

There are other financial aspects though, which few will consider in the bigger picture.

The initial plans unveiled by Ratcliffe in March 2025 featured a huge canopy. That in itself will be costly, but in theory the overhang and what is underneath it will be in United’s footprint – and the club will be responsible for it. Will the expense be worth the ‘look’?

Construction could – in part – take place off site and be shipped in if club officials are to be believed. That is likely to cost less than doing all the work in Old Trafford.

And then having a new build where it is, down the road from their current ground, deals with the potentially thorny problem about where United would play if Old Trafford was closed for a period.

None of Manchester City, Liverpool or Everton’s grounds are ideal from a security perspective. All have a lower capacity than Old Trafford and all would cost a lot to hire, even if it was desirable.

United’s current plans mean they can simply move from one stadium to another.

Newcastle’s dilemma

Cars parked outside and pedestrians approaching St James Park in 1930 — Image caption,

St James’ Park has been the home of Newcastle United since 1892

For Newcastle, a club which this summer has effectively had to sell some of its best players in order to stay within the financial rules, the argument over moving to a new purpose-built stadium is compelling.

Back to some number crunching:

“For the 2024-25 season Newcastle’s matchday income was £52m. Manchester United’s was £160m, Arsenal’s £154m, Spurs’ was £126m.

“If you’re £100m behind your competitors, the only way to address that is either to be super smart or to charge more money for the product.

“How can Newcastle increase the yield per fan and still be loyal to the Gallowgate hardcore? You need to be able to offer a different product and St James’ Park wasn’t built for a corporate audience.”

Will the fans back a move though?

Newcastle supporter Charlotte Robson has mixed feelings.

“I think we can host gigs at St James’ Park but probably not on the scale of Spurs or West Ham’s London Stadium.

“I don’t think it would be stupid to move from the ground but I think there is so much identity for Newcastle fans who are attached to St James’ Park that it would break a lot of hearts to move the ground in any significant way.”

Along with increased matchday revenue, clubs weighing up whether to move will also hope to make more commercial revenue – but Maguire is cautious.

“Spurs have got the advantage that they’re in London – a huge tourist trap. They are also a club with a global fanbase, so it works there.

“Is that going to work elsewhere in the country where you’ve got a more localised fanbase and where there is resistance to putting up prices for tickets? Then it becomes more challenging.

“We have seen a substantial increase in the costs of putting stadiums together, but there still seems to be an appetite for it.”

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11 August 2023

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