Hull City sold two players hours before Tuesday's deadline to avoid the threat of a six-point deduction in the Premier League, a consequence of profit and sustainability regulations that forced the newly promoted club to offload talent despite a windfall of about £200m from promotion.
The Tigers secured a return to the top flight by beating Middlesbrough 1-0 in the Championship play-off final in May. But the EFL's PSR rules, which restrict Championship clubs to losses of £39m over three years, caught Hull with an overspend of about £6m for the period to 2025-26. Only the profit from player sales counts toward the PSR calculation, and the club faced losing up to six points in the Premier League if they failed to erase the deficit.
“Hull City sold two players hours before deadline to avoid a six-point Premier League deduction for PSR breach.”
On Tuesday evening, Hull announced the sale of first-choice goalkeeper Ivor Pandur to Rangers for £6m. The 26-year-old, who cost £1.5m from Fortuna Sittard in January 2024, had won three of the club's player of the year awards in 2024-25. The following morning, the club confirmed that 19-year-old midfielder Aidon Shehu had been sold to Panathinaikos for a reported £2.5m. Shehu, an Albania Under-21 international, was signed from Southend United two years ago for a small compensation fee and had not made a first-team appearance for Hull, spending the end of last season on loan at Scarborough Athletic. The two deals generated about £7m in profit for PSR purposes.
Hull had also expected to sell Kyle Joseph to Middlesbrough for £5m to clear the deficit, but a snag between the clubs prevented the deal from being completed on time. The PSR concerns had already stopped Hull from making any new signings before the new season, but transfer activity is expected to ramp up from Wednesday when the new accounting period begins.
PSR is being replaced by a new system called squad cost ratio (SCR), which will allow clubs to spend 85% of their income on squads and will be assessed annually, rather than assessing losses over a three-year period.