The latest Sunderland AFC transfer news and opinion after the summer transfer window closed earlier this week.
Sunderland chairman and majority owner Kyril Louis-Dreyfus.
Leeds United’s managing director, Robbie Davies, believes Sunderland has the ‘highest cap room in the history of PSR’ after their remarkable summer spending spree.
The Black Cats spent an estimated £183.4million – according to Sky Sports – in an attempt to avoid relegation back to the Championship, bringing in the likes of Granit Xhaka and Nordi Mukiele who boast incredible CVs.
Speaking to The Athletic, the Whites’ chief tried to outline the difference between all three newly-promoted sides, with Sunderland outspending their relegation rivals, despite having not played in the Premier League as recently as Leeds.
“Unequivocally, we are maxing out PSR this season, just as last season and the season before,” Davies said when asked to compare Leeds’ transfer spend compared to the Black Cats. “That is something that would be verifiable, when the accounts come out, whenever they come out. There’s no point in trying to lie about that.
“As far as the relative aggression or ambition financially between Leeds and Sunderland [goes], as a sports business nerd, they are fascinating, duelling case studies. Sunderland has, in my view, the perfect storm, in a good way, of creating PSR room between the combination of, as far as I’m aware, little or no operating loss [during the] last two seasons, very low wage bill, gets promoted, sells their top talents for tens of millions.
“They are effectively carrying no prior losses and a player sale profit into the Premier League, where they’ve also a 48,000 stadium waiting for them to sell out every game. Those conditions have never existed in the history of PSR.
“My guess is Sunderland has the highest cap room in the history of PSR, and they have been very aggressive in that, which they deserve a lot of credit for. That happened as a part of their long-term plan, building up from the youth movement.
“Leeds comes from almost the exact opposite position. Last year, Leeds had to get promoted because of the level of past player investment, wage bill, etc. We doubled down on as much quality as possible last season to maximise our promotion odds.
“We carried a big wage bill two years ago, a big wage bill a year ago. We lost roughly £60m in our company’s accounts in the fiscal year 2024. That loss is inside of our three-year PSR window. Between two years in the Championship and one year in the Premier League, you’re allowed PSR losses of £61m.
“Those numbers are very similar, meaning this year, we have to operate very efficiently to make our three-year window work. Within that, we have, frankly, been able to get more done through a combination of aggressive contracting and commercial success and other elements to maximise our spend this season, to get more player quality in than expected.
“We are in almost entirely different circumstances to Sunderland because, even though I know they’re being compared to us because we are both promoted sides, from a broader, long-term financial perspective, they’re almost complete opposites in terms of how they’re entering this particular year from a PSR perspective.”
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