Evidence
Sources and methodology
Every figure on this site carries a source id that resolves to an entry on this page.
Sources are grouped by what they can actually support. A primary source is published by the organisation the figure is about. A secondary source is reporting. An index — Wikipedia, for instance — is a way of finding primary sources and is never treated as authority in its own right, so any figure resting on one is marked for verification without exception.
Primary sources
Published by the organisation the figure is about. These are the ones we prefer, and the ones we chase when a figure only exists in a secondary report.
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Premier League statement on strategic partnership with EFL
Read by a maintainer on 2026-09-05.
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Written evidence submitted by the English Football League (FGB03)
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5901/cmpublic/FootballGovernance/memo/FGB03.htm
Read by a maintainer on 2026-09-14.
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The FA releases National League System club allocations for Steps 1-6 in 2026-27 season
https://www.thefa.com/news/2026/may/14/nls-club-allocations-2026-27
Read by a maintainer on 2026-09-05.
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National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage rates
https://www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage-rates
Read by a maintainer on 2026-09-27. The National Living Wage is £12.71 an hour for those aged 21 and over from April 2026, which is the rate the volunteer labour on a matchday is valued at.
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National League System club allocations, Steps 1 to 4, season 2026-27
Read by a maintainer on 2026-09-27. The club counts at Steps 1 to 4 were counted off this document division by division.
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National League System club allocations, Steps 5 and 6, season 2026-27
Read by a maintainer on 2026-09-27. The club counts at Steps 5 and 6 were counted off this document division by division. Note two labelling slips in the document itself: the Western League Step 6 division is headed “Premier Division” though its code is WL1 and the commentary calls it Division One, and the Wessex League Step 5 numbering repeats 5 and omits 7 while still listing 22 clubs.
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The Football Governance Act 2025 (Commencement No. 3) Regulations 2026
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2026/477/made
Not yet re-checked by a maintainer.
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Premier League announces increased funding for non-league and women's clubs
Read by a maintainer on 2026-09-05.
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Wider football support: the Premier League's investment package for the National League and its 72 clubs
https://www.premierleague.com/en/footballandcommunity/morethanagame/wider-football
Read by a maintainer on 2026-09-28.
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Premier League Stadium Fund
Not yet re-checked by a maintainer.
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Non-league and grassroots football: what is the state of play?
https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/non-league-and-grassroots-football-what-is-the-state-of-play/
Not yet re-checked by a maintainer.
Secondary sources
Reporting and analysis. Reliable enough to publish, but a figure that rests only on one of these is flagged until we can find the primary announcement.
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Premier League agree EFL funding deal which could be worth £1.5bn
https://www.cityam.com/premier-league-agree-efl-funding-deal-which-could-be-worth-1-5bn/
Read by a maintainer on 2026-09-05.
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Premier League clubs agree new £1.5bn deal for EFL
https://insidersport.com/2026/08/03/premier-league-efl-new-deal/
Read by a maintainer on 2026-09-05.
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Premier League revenue: TV rights, sponsorship and IMG Productions
Read by a maintainer on 2026-09-05.
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State of the Game report (draft), section 4.2: financial cliff-edges and distributions
https://sotg.footballregulator.org.uk
Read by a maintainer on 2026-10-14. The base of our one per cent model comes from here. A draft, open to consultation until 8 December 2026; the 2025/26 figures in it are forecasts as at March 2026.
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State of the Game report (draft), Annex C: Revenue
https://www.footballregulator.org.uk/publication-scheme/state-of-the-game
Read by a maintainer on 2026-10-14. Revenue by league and source for 2025/26. The annexes are published separately from the report and are not on the report's own site.
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State of the Game report (draft), Annex J: Assessment of Distributions
https://www.footballregulator.org.uk/publication-scheme/state-of-the-game
Read by a maintainer on 2026-10-14. Relegation impact and the incentive to overspend, including the National League figures.
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Football regulator to review parachute payments; State of the Game report timing
Read by a maintainer on 2026-09-05.
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The Football Governance Act 2025: what came into force on 5 May 2026
Read by a maintainer on 2026-09-05.
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Key elements of the Football Governance Act 2025
https://www.lw.com/en/insights/key-elements-of-the-football-governance-act-2025
Read by a maintainer on 2026-09-14.
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The Football Governance Act 2025 (Specified Competitions) Regulations 2025
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2025/1216/regulation/2/made
Read by a maintainer on 2026-09-14.
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EFL TV money and parachute payments explained
Not yet re-checked by a maintainer.
Indexes, not citations
Used to find primary sources, never cited as authority in their own right. Any figure resting on one of these is marked for verification, without exception.
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Premier League parachute and solidarity payments
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premier_League_parachute_and_solidarity_payments
Read by a maintainer on 2026-09-05.
Methodology
Where our own arithmetic comes in
Several figures on this site are ours rather than anyone else's, and they are marked Our estimate wherever they appear. There are four kinds:
- Cycle totals divided by seasons. The Premier League publishes revenue by broadcast cycle, not by season. We divide by the number of seasons in the cycle. Football's cash flows are not actually even, so this is an average rather than a fact about any particular year.
- Residuals. What Premier League clubs receive is calculated as what is left after parachute payments, solidarity payments and the wider-game commitment. If any of those inputs is wrong, the residual is wrong with it.
- Club counts within a step. The FA publishes allocations as documents by step rather than as a table of counts. Our per-step numbers multiply divisions by a typical division size and are then constrained to add up to The FA's published total of 996.
- The one per cent model. Entirely ours, weightings and all. It exists so that "a fixed share" means something specific enough to argue with. The full working is here.
Rules we hold ourselves to
- A field we cannot source is absent from the data, not rendered as a zero or a dash. That is why the step explorer has no attendance row and the club records have no running costs.
- A figure that is historic is labelled with its season on the page, not only in a tooltip.
- Where a figure is contested or where sources disagree, both positions are given. The 2025–29 cycle is described inconsistently as 2025-2028 and 2025-2029 by the same report; we say so rather than picking one silently.
- No figure is rounded up to make a point. Where rounding changes a total — the one per cent model lands at £34,725,600 rather than £34,720,000 — the difference is stated.
Corrections we have already made
This list will grow, and we would rather it were long than short.
- Club count at Steps 1 to 6. An early draft used a figure of around 1,600 clubs. The FA's own 2026-27 allocation is 996 across 48 divisions and 19 leagues. We use the governing body's number.
- The 2026 settlement. An early draft described it as agreed. It is a proposal that Premier League clubs approved and offered to the EFL, which has not accepted it. The page now says so.
- "About £150m a season." That is the average of a rising scale whose first season is under £100m. We give the profile instead.
- Leagues versus divisions. The counts of 4, 8, 16 and 17 at Steps 3 to 6 are divisions, not leagues. The distinction is in the glossary.
- What the one per cent is taken from. Until October 2026 the model used £3,062,500,000, our own division of a cycle total by four seasons, which we had flagged ourselves as unverified. The Independent Football Regulator has since published what the Premier League actually distributed to clubs in 2025/26, and we use that: £3,472,000,000, so the pot is £34,720,000 rather than £30,625,000. We also drew the line more carefully. The base is money football generates collectively and hands out, and excludes anything a club earns for itself — its own sponsorship, its gate, its UEFA prize money. That is why we do not use the Regulator's own broadcast revenue figure of £3.8bn, which includes UEFA and cup income.
- Two comparisons that were simply wrong. This page used to say the one per cent was "roughly a third" of a season's parachute payments and "about half of one per cent" of the cycle. Neither was right: on the old figures they were about an eighth and a quarter of one per cent. Both are now stated with the arithmetic beside them.