FiT Publishing

Manipulation of on-field events for betting gain appears to be a growing problem in football and other sports. It can be linked to developments in the betting environment and is a potential threat to the football industry to the extent that it may deter fans, sponsors, and broadcasters from purchasing the product. Risks are highest in European lower-tier competitions where high liquidity in the betting market contrasts with modest incomes among players and officials. The liquidity is provided principally by Asian betting markets that are largely unregulated, which itself is a significant...Read more

This study investigates the effect of sporting performances on the volatility of listed football clubs. The theoretical background is based on the importance of intangible assets in the football industry and the difficulty in evaluating them. The empirical analysis is based on the family of autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (ARCH) models and relates to a sample of football clubs listed on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) and included in the Dow Jones STOXX Football Index. The findings show that sporting performances have a significant impact on the volatility of listed...Read more

This paper investigates whether there are country-specific characteristics in goal scoring in the final stage of important international football matches. We examine goal scoring, from 1960 onwards, in full ‘A’ international matches of eight national teams: Argentina, Brazil, England, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain. We analyze qualifying matches for the European Championship and World Cup and the matches at the final tournaments of these two events, as well as at the Copa América. We find that Argentina, Germany, and Italy are more likely than the other national teams...Read more

Economists have offered a plethora of studies examining various aspects of professional team sports. Such studies, though, often neglect the playoffs. Given the impact the post-season has on league revenue, as well as the utility generated for both participants and observers of professional sports, such neglect misses much of the story people wish to tell about sports. In an era of free agency and salary caps, teams must determine the optimal strategy for maximizing their probability of success. Is the best offense a good defense, or does defense win championships? The purpose of this...Read more

This study analyzes the effects of initial public offerings (IPO) on the performance of European football clubs. We use a unique panel dataset consisting of domestic and international performance data to investigate a football club’s on-field performance before and after going public. The study finds that the performance of football clubs does not improve on average with or after an IPO. Only football clubs in lower divisions benefit from a stock market listing. At the international level, there is no evidence of an improved performance associated with the IPO. The findings are consistent...Read more

This paper examines the relationship between the demand for English football on television and outcome uncertainty. It tests the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis by using minute-by-minute television viewership figures which avoids the problems encountered when estimating demand using match attendance. We find that although uncertainty matters, it is the progression of the match which drives viewership and as a draw looks increasingly likely, viewers are likely to switch channels. Games that end in victories have a higher average viewership than games that end in stalemates.Read more

Most professional football clubs in Belgium are facing financial problems. In this note, we try to find out if the poor financial situation of many Belgian football clubs is caused by player salaries that are too high. In other words: are professional football players in Belgium overpaid?Read more

The revenues of professional football clubs in Europe have increased enormously over the last decades. The big five European leagues (England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain) in 2007-08 generated revenues of almost €10 billion, of which €3 billion have to be attributed to the English Premier League and €1.8 billion each to the Spanish “La Liga,” the Italian “Serie A,” and the German “Bundesliga.”Read more

This study estimates a demand curve for physically aggressive play in the English Premier Football League (EPL), the highest level of professional association football (soccer) in England. Employing a league-point-maximization framework in which a team chooses its level of aggressive play as an input, optimum aggressive play is assumed to respond to its price, where price is the reduction in the probability of a win or a tie resulting from aggressive play. The results indicate that aggressive play by EPL teams, as measured by total disciplinary points, is responsive to opportunity cost for...Read more

UEFA is the sports governing body for football (soccer) in Europe with 53 national associations as members of a democratic organization. UEFA is also the most important member of FIFA, which is the international governing body for football. UEFA organizes all European Championships and Youth Championships, as well as two trans-European playoffs every year between the best teams from the national leagues. The better teams from the 53 national leagues are, with some playoffs for the positions, playing in these two leagues. And the better the teams from a national league are performing, the...Read more