Football Market Research Articles

Modelling of football companies' rates of return according to sport results and bookmakers' expectations on the example of serie A

This article deals with the problem of the necessity of using individual econometric models to describe the relationship between the rates of returns of stocks and sport results and expectations of bookmakers’ market - which means factors reflecting some emotional biases. The specificity of these factors makes it necessary to use individual approach to each case. The main goal of this research is to verify the hypothesis - the rates of returns should be modeled by econometric models of the ARCH(q) type using factors closely tied with a sport activity but different for every club (stock). The shares quotations of three Italian clubs listed on the Milan Stock Exchange were used in the research. They were AS Rome, Juventus Turin and Lazio Rome. The bookmakers’ odds of the analyzed clubs’ matches in the Italian Serie A were also used in this article. The analysis covered the period of time from 2001 to 2014. The chosen clubs are the components of Dow Jones Europe Football Index. Football market in Italy in comparison with the European market

Avrupa Futbol Pazarının Ekonomik Boyutu ve Avrupa Futbol Kulüplerinde Finansal Performans Analizi

Football which had been just an sportive event up to the mid of 80’s has created its economic value since the beginning of 90’s. The European football market continued to show resistance to wider economic pressures, growing to €19,4 billion in 2011/12 Due to the quick spread of the concrete effects of added value which came out because of the football, the financial and managerial analysis of football clubs having great amount of budget took center stage. In this study, the financial analysis of football clubs which are prominent in the football sector in Europe and accessible to the public as well has been done according to the traditional performance criteria. The main and common financial problems of the football clubs were ascertained and solution proposals were put forward.

Strategic resource planning for football clubs

The paper provides a multi-perspective analysis on strategic resource planning for football clubs. Towards this aim, financial planning, fundraising and sponsorship are examined, and their strategic marketing aspects are presented and interrelated. The paper rests soundly on scientific theoretical and secondary data research, and incorporates literature on football, sports and generic strategic marketing and finance subjects. The findings underline the need for strategic resource management that is methodically planned, implemented and evaluated. Furthermore, individual components should not be viewed in isolation, but comprehensively and in conjunction with each other. Merging of resources into a unified and value-based system is proposed, in which resources are not measured in terms of pure financial terms, but holistically evaluated in terms of the value they offer in a multi-dimensional and a multi-directional way. Finally, strategic resource planning must be integrated with strategic marketing planning to ensure alignment and commonality of both means and ends.

Financial communication in professional football clubs

Nowadays football is not a simple show but also business with revenues of the football market amounting to 12,6 thousand million euros in the European Union in 2005 and 2006 only. Despite the importance of this market, very little research has critically examined the financial communication of football teams as enterprises in this market. As such, this paper critically discusses the valuation and the application of the impairment test of intangibles assets of football teams. Specifically, this study looks at players’ registrations, which are recorded as a specific item among the intangibles of the statement of financial position of professional football enterprises. Indeed, the players’ registrations represent the main item of football teams balance sheets. As such, this paper critically analyses the application of the rules defined by IAS/IFRS, with the objective to find a correct treatment of enrolment and valuation of players’ registrations in financial statements. Currently, IAS/IFRS are applied only to listed companies. However, IAS/IFRS could be useful for unlisted companies in this case given that IAS 38 defines rules for valuation of intangible assets such as players’ registration. This study follows an empirical approach by taking into account professional football teams listed in the “ the STOXX Europe Football Index” (this index includes twentyfour teams from different member states of the European Union and is as such considered to be representative of the European football industry) and Professional football clubs participating in the 2009/2010 Serie A and Serie B, Italian championships, both held and organized by Federazione Italiana Giuoco Calcio (F.I.G.C.). This work extends the literature on the treatment of player’s registrations in financial statements and provides accountants with detailed information on the application and interpretation of accounting standards for a correct recognition and valuation of player’s registrations.

Football supporters and the commercialisation of football: comparative responses across Europe

European football market finances appear to be in very good health and impervious to the current Euro-wide financial crises. Yet beneath the apparent financial buoyancy a different story emerges, one of fan exploitation, spiraling debt and the threat of bankruptcy hanging over many clubs. In this introduction to the special issue we chart what is effectively a political economy of debt underpinning the European football market and threatening to bring professional football in Europe into disrepute. Against this backdrop the paper considers the impact financial exuberance and systemic debt has had on fans’ identification with clubs. It is argued that whilst football fans have borne the social and economic costs of weak governance and lack of financial regulation, which have become the hallmark of European football, they have also shown themselves to be highly resistant to the commercialisation of football and innovative in their responses to this commercialisation.

Maximizing effectiveness in team sports: the personal audit tool

PurposeThis conceptual paper aims to offer a theoretical contribution that explicates the “blind spot” cultural diversity and reward diversity team conflict contingencies, and personal audit as a mechanism for managing the consequences.Design/methodology/approachThe paper suggests a framework for analysing and managing diversity (cultural and reward) driven team conflicts. Given the theoretical foundation, personal audit among team members is recommended as a tool for managing the consequences of such conflict factors.FindingsThis paper underlines the team building intervention utility for team effectiveness. It reinforces theoretical foundation that highlights conflict as a determinant of team effectiveness, and reviews two diversity dimensions of team conflicts. Finally, it suggests and explains an “active learning” personal audit model for achieving the conceptualised team effectiveness perspective.Practical implicationsThe paper highlights critical but usually overlooked team conflict intricacies in football team management. This framework offers practical relevance in enabling understanding of “attitudes and behaviours” of team members and human resource management in football marketing. Managers would benefit from this perspective and improve team effectiveness, performance and organisation's performance.Originality/valueThe paper offers valuable conceptual insight for development, one that serves the interest of management of football clubs and academia.

A diagnosis of the commercial immaturity of Swedish club football1

This article presents a critical diagnosis of Swedish club football, in light of its current shortcomings on the European football market, and in comparison with the other Scandinavian leagues. The article highlights the commercial immaturity of the Swedish clubs, in addition to the context of historical and cultural values, restricted association forms, the emphasis on internationalism, the fixed tax system, the standards of the arenas, the lack of patronage and the migration of talents. The analysis closes with a depressed depiction of Swedish club football, in relation to development in Europe, as well as in Scandinavia. Still, in a dialectical reasoning this situation is, finally, evaluated as a valuable development in relation to fairness, internal sports logics as well as ecological values.

Taxation and International Migration of Superstars: Evidence from the European Football Market

We analyze the effects of top tax rates on international migration of football players in 14 European countries since 1985. Both country case studies and multinomial regressions show evidence of strong mobility responses to tax rates, with an elasticity of the number of foreign (domestic) players to the net-of-tax rate around one (around 0.15). We also find evidence of sorting effects (low taxes attract highability players who displace low-ability players) and displacement effects (low taxes on foreigners displace domestic players). Those results can be rationalized in a simple model of migration and taxation with rigid labor demand. (JEL F22, H24, H31, J44, J61, L83)

Who owns England's game? American professional sporting influences and foreign ownership in the Premier League

Changes to the organization of, and commercialism in, the Barclay's Premier League in England have made clubs attractive to international investors. Recently, in particular, there has been a rapid increase in American ownership of Premier League teams with Aston Villa, Liverpool and Manchester United owned by Americans and a large minority shareholder at Arsenal is American. Beyond directorship/ownership issues, North American organizational and marketing structures of professional sport have increased their influence within the Premier League. These include a focus on diverse revenue streams including media rights, luxury seating, commodification and branding of clubs and their heritage, and diversified services as well as differing patterns of club ownership and administration. Although these have merged with English traditions within professional football, there is no doubt that North American influences have begun to change the nature of marketing within the game and have also made leading English clubs attractive to North American and other international investors. The result of the increasing ‘Americanization’ of English professional football (soccer) marketing and management strategies has clashed with English traditions of organization as well as supporters' consumption of the game itself.

The governance and regulation of Italian football

Italian football represents a paradox. It produces teams which, at the elite level, are the most successful in European club competitions, and second only to Brazil in national competitions. The quality of its players, in terms of sporting excellence, make it one of the most admired football cultures in the world. The romance and tradition of Italian football captures the imagination of a global sporting public. On the other hand, the industry is chronically unprofitable and unstable, and characterized by a long history of financial scandal. The 2007/2008 season saw it continue to endure an ongoing crisis of confidence in the wake of financial and sporting scandals, an upsurge of spectator violence in dilapidated stadia and crowds well below their peak in the 1990s. This article presents a comprehensive case study of the recent history of Italian football focusing on its administration, governance and regulation. The objective of the case study is to provide a detailed context, in one of the big five European football markets (the others being England, France, Germany and Spain), against which to analyse and inform fresh thinking on how more effective systems of corporate governance in European football might be developed. Much of what is written about the governance of football tends to focus on the English industry. A premise of this article is that it is necessary to move beyond an anglo‐centric orientation and analyse the systems and experience in other European football markets and cultures. This is because football in individual countries forms part of a pyramid structure ultimately governed by the European football governing body, UEFA. What happens in individual country markets has the potential to affect what happens in other markets either by way of example, through influencing UEFA policy, or through precedent‐setting rulings in the courts, such as the Bosman ruling of 1995 which allowed players free movement at the end of their contracts without a transfer fee having to be paid as had hitherto been the case. The case study is interdisciplinary in its focus – economic, social and political dimensions are all important in trying to understand what constitutes the Italian model of football, a European model of football or indeed the European model of football. Critically the article asks the following questions: (1) Is it possible for Italian football to prosper in an environment in which there appears to have been significant shortcomings in governance? (2) If not, what should be the key planks of an agenda for reform? (3) Is there potential for ‘contagion’ of negative Italian experience in the rest of the European football market?

‘Go Outside’: The History, Economics and Geography of Ghanaian Football Labour Migration

By the beginning of the new millennium, Ghana had become one of the primary exporters of football labour from the African continent. This article examines the history, geography and economic dimensions of this migratory trend. It reveals that the movement of Ghanaian footballers into the international football market was slow in developing. This was largely because of two factors. Firstly, during the colonial period, British football clubs, unlike those in some other countries with a significant imperial presence in Africa, were much too insular to envision Britain's African territories as a source of playing talent despite the existence there of strong football cultures. Secondly, when Ghana acquired its independence, the first head of state, Kwame Nkrumah, invested heavily in the promotion of the game at both domestic and international level. This ensured that sound infrastructures were put in place for football development, thereby convincing players of the game's future in the country. However, during the last decade of the twentieth century and the first of the twenty-first century Ghanaian football migrants have increasingly populated leagues in Europe and elsewhere. The profile and proficiency of a number of ‘path-breaking’ players who joined European clubs in the 1980s were important in initiating this development but Ghana's success in world youth competitions was key. The continued decline of the local Ghanaian game during the 1990s and early 2000s, the development of a whole host of football ‘academies’ in the same period and the successes of Ghanaian football migrants such as Abedi Pele, Sulley Muntari and Michael Essien have also fed into Ghana's status as a major football labour exporter, not least because they have helped to create an almost all-pervasive aspiration amongst young talented players to ply their trade beyond the country's borders.

A neoliberal sports event? FIFA from the Estadio Nacional to the fan mile

With more than 200 member associations the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) is one of the largest nonprofit organizations in the world. Founded in 1904 as an Old Boys Network, from the 1980s onwards, it turned football into a global business and the FIFA World Cup into its main product, thus generating billions of euros from sponsors, the sports and media industry, from host nations and host cities. Every four years and for a time period of four weeks, FIFA invades cities, beforehand setting rules and regulations the applicants for holding the event have to obey to—including but not limited to infrastructure demands, advertisement regulations, safety and security rules. Taking the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany as an example, the purpose of the paper is twofold: it firstly asks, using Jessop’s approach about promoting and adjusting global neoliberalism through strategies of neostatism, neocorporatism and neocommunitarianism (2002), whether and if so to what extent FIFA can be described as a neocommunitarian but neoliberalizing global institution shaping and being shaped by ‘actually existing neoliberalism’ (Brenner and Theodore, Antipode 34(3), pp. 349–379, 2002). In the second section, the World Cup is taken as an empirical example for how and in which forms neoliberalization FIFA‐style shapes and is shaped by the urban form, that is, the commercialization and commodification of (public) space and its hierarchization. In the same line, the ‘safety, order and security’ complex (SOS) and its strategies and tactics demanded by FIFA are analyzed in terms of humanware, software and hardware. The paper concludes by showing that the nonprofit FIFA has been able to determine not only the glocal football market, but as well the urban form, the respective security networks, and the tax‐free absorption of profits from state and private actors before, during and after World Cups.

A Study on Football Market Development Comparing Characteristics of Amateurs and Athletes Based on the Predictive Model of Sports Behavioral Science

A Study on Football Market Development Comparing Characteristics of Amateurs and Athletes Based on the Predictive Model of Sports Behavioral Science

Nigeria, Football, and the Return of Lord Lugard

This qualitative research investigated the meaning of the European football leagues’ domination of the Nigerian football market. It finds that the media use a frame of “Nigeria as colony” to report football. In essence, the media interpret Europe as center of modern football and Nigeria as periphery. The study uses 2 methods: (a) a frame analysis of 2 daily sports newspapers, 1 national daily newspaper, and a satellite television sports channel and (b) in-depth interviews of 10 Nigerian football fans. Each complementary method helps confirm results obtained by the other. The frame analysis discovers 4 themes and the interviews found 5 related themes. Each theme logically links to the archetype frame of Nigeria as colony. The results of the study confirm valence framing, demonstrating the impact of the frame on Nigerian sports fans.

The European football market, globalization and mobility among players

Globalization has advanced substantially since the collapse of the Iron Curtain. This process has had a considerable impact upon the conditions of sport, including football. The focus of this study is the changes that have occurred in Swedish football from the 1990s onwards. The exchange of footballers between Sweden and other countries has accelerated within both the women’s and men’s games, especially after 1994, when Sweden became a member of the EU. The influence of globalization on Swedish football, a process with specific locations both temporally – for different generations – and spatially – in defined domains – can be measured by examining the careers of Swedish footballers moving abroad and the recruitment of non‐Swedish players to Swedish football clubs. This analysis demonstrates that there are material differences in this respect between the women’s and men’s games, although globalization has affected them both substantially.

An Analytical Framework for a Political Economy of Football

A political economy of football has become more essential as the game has been colonized by elements of the business class. There is a tension between its profit maximizing understanding of football and a more community oriented, democratic vision that seeks to pursue government policy goals. The insights of economics and politics are both necessary to understand the political economy of football, but they should not be hybridized. Economics allows us to understand the distinctive characteristics of the football market while politics permits an analysis both of the politics of cooption and engagement and the politics of resistance. Four variables are identified that represent a political science contribution to the analysis of football and its relationship with government.

The FA's role in developing five-a-side football: Strategic alliances with stakeholders

Five-a-side football has become the most popular form of football in England and the sport's national governing body, the Football Association (FA), has recognized that it must develop its role in this market. As part of its Football Development Strategy (2001), the FA has stated that it needs to develop partnerships with relevant public and private sector organizations. Against this background this paper has two aims. Firstly, the authors explore with selected stakeholders their views regarding the FA's role in developing five-a-side football through strategic alliances. Secondly, by drawing on the literature and their fieldwork, the authors present a framework for examining strategic alliance options that can be applied by national governing bodies of other sports. The results of the research study suggest that the FA should play a key role in developing the five-a-side football market and, through its network of County FAs, seek strategic alliances with stakeholders from the private, public and voluntary sectors. The framework presented by the authors assists the FA and other national governing bodies in the planning of strategic alliances.

Market Efficiency and a Profitable Betting Rule

This article presents empirical tests of efficient markets on the professional football market for totals from 1979 through 2000. The forecast errors in the totals market were found to be skewed, so a test of a fair bet on National Football League totals was performed using a log likelihood ratio test as suggested by Evan and Noble. The under on the total is a winning proposition more than 50% of the time, but a fair bet cannot be rejected. A betting rule that looks at totals in the high end of the totals distribution and takes a contrarian strategy of betting unders for games that are 7,6, or 5 points above the mean is shown to violate a fair bet. Rejection of no profitability, when incorporating the take of the sportsbook, is also rejected for the highest of the totals.

Moving with the ball: the migration of professional footballers

As a universal game, association football has been particularly suited to the transfer of labour forces. It does not require the use of a specific national language, a recognized diploma or acquired qualification, and the rules are standardized across the globe. Thus the international football market could be considered an ideal example of a transnational and multicultural employment sector. Role models throughout the history of professional football have not necessarily come from the town, nation, racial group or religious denomination of the majority of supporters, as is seen in the cases of Maradona in Naples, the German Bert Trautmann after the Second World War, and more recently the Frenchman Eric Cantona in Manchester, the Cameroonese Milla in France, and the Argentinian Di Stefano in Madrid. Football provides a particularly revealing lens through which to examine changes in national styles and stereotypes as they have been (and still are) reflected in the search for identities in sporting heroes. In this book, the authors consider the movement of football labour from the late nineteenth-century to the present day within the framework of international migration as a whole. Emphasis is given to the initial role of the British in the early twentieth century and the impact of the earliest South American and Yugoslav football 'wanderers'. The position of African footballers in the postwar period and the failure of America's national league in the 1970s are also discussed, along with the international market for coaches and managers, the development of national playing styles and the immediate consequences and future implications of the Bosman ruling.

Negative enforcement of employment contracts in the sports industries

The right to the exclusive services of sports performers is a valuable asset, in team sports, to the clubs which employ them and, in individual sports, to the agents, managers and/or promoters who act for them. This is most visible in professional football's market for players’ services where leading performers are currently ‘sold’ for many millions of pounds. The notion of players as assets is often reflected in clubs’ accounts and enhances clubs’ overall value. Of those clubs which are owned by publicly quoted companies the securing (or loss) of a star player can crucially affect the share price of the controlling company. In a more general sense a player's value to his club is reflected in his capacity to attract larger attendances, an increased volume of pre-season ticket sales and enhanced merchandising and marketing opportunities.