Player Migration and Soccer Performance.

Carlos Lago-Peñas,Ignacio Lago,Santiago Lago-Peñas

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00616

Carlos Lago-Peñas, Ignacio Lago + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00616

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Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between migrating soccer players and the annual ranking of the national teams according to the World Football Elo Rating. The sample includes annual data for 243 countries over the period 1994–2018. Migration is captured with the number of migrating players by country in the “big-five” leagues. The causal relationship between the two variables is examined by using Granger causality test. Four control variables are included: the political regime, per capita income, population, and regional soccer confederations. It was hypothesized that (i) the better the ranking of the national teams in the Elo rating, the higher the number of migrating players in the “big-five” leagues (shop-window hypotheses) and that (ii) while the shop-window effect takes place in the short-run, the annual Elo rating of a national team is positively affected by expatriate players in the medium or long-run, but not in the short-run (blending hypotheses). The results shed light on two crucial issues. First, causality mainly goes from national soccer performance to migrating soccer players rather than the other way around. Second, the timing of the two effects is quite different. While those players giving an outstanding performance when their national team is doing well are immediately bought by clubs from more highly ranked leagues (the shop-window effect), it takes at least 4 years for the additional skills acquired by migrated players to have a positive effect on the national soccer performance (the blending effect).

Highlights

Globalization —the process fueled by, and resulting in, increasing cross-border flows of goods, services, money, people, information, and culture (Held et al, 1999, p. 16)— has dramatically affected domestic societies over the last decades and stimulated an intense research in economics, sociology, political science or anthropology (Berger, 2000; Guillén, 2001; Steger, 2017).Soccer is not isolated from globalization
To examine the causal relationship between the annual ranking of the national teams according to the World Football Elo Rating and the migration of soccer players, data were collected from 243 countries for which annual data on the two variables are available over the period 1994–2018
According to the Monte Carlo evidence provided by Beck and Katz (2011), the usual corrections for this bias do not perform better than the Least Squares Dummy Variables (LSDV) when T is greater than 20. ∗p < 0.05; ∗∗p < 0.01

Summary

Introduction

Globalization —the process fueled by, and resulting in, increasing cross-border flows of goods, services, money, people, information, and culture (Held et al, 1999, p. 16)— has dramatically affected domestic societies over the last decades and stimulated an intense research in economics, sociology, political science or anthropology (Berger, 2000; Guillén, 2001; Steger, 2017).Soccer is not isolated from globalization. Migration and Soccer recorded in the 2,120 clubs competing in 137 leagues of 93 national associations worldwide. A team has 5.7 expatriate footballers, meaning that foreign players represent 21.6% of the average squad (Poli et al, 2017). In 2018, the proportion of expatriate players in a sample of 31 top division leagues of UEFA members association has increased to a record level of 41.5% (Poli et al, 2018). They are increasingly important in their teams. According to the most recent available data (November 2018), the percentage of minutes played by foreign players is 64.7% in the English Premier League (EPL), 61% in the Italian Serie A, 51.5% in the German Bundesliga, 39% in the Spanish Liga and 37.3% in the French Ligue 1 (Poli et al, 2018)

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