dEjournals Home Page
Régiókutatás Szemle
Current
Archives Fortcoming Articles Search
Register Login

Régiókutatás Szemle

Vol. 8 No. 2 (2023)
Articles

Comparative analysis of player transfer activity in the "Big 5" European football leagues

Published:
April 16, 2024
DOI Linkhttps://doi.org/10.30716/RSZ/23/2/3
Author
Bence András Bács
View
hu
Keywords
club football player value player transfer revenue transfers
License

Copyright (c) 2023 Bence András Bács

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

How To Cite
Selected Style: APA
Bács, B. A. (2024). Comparative analysis of player transfer activity in the "Big 5" European football leagues. Régiókutatás Szemle, 8(2), 25-35. https://doi.org/10.30716/RSZ/23/2/3
Abstract

Transfer news and events generate as much, if not more, interest than the final matches of the most prestigious cup competitions. It is not uncommon for a player's playing rights (which clubs recognise as intangible assets) to change hands for sums in excess of €10 million or even €100 million, with the outstanding revenues of the most prestigious Big 5 leagues contributing greatly to the reality of these transactions. The aim of this study is to provide a comparative analysis of player transfer activity in the Big 5 leagues, focusing on the correlations and relationships between league revenues, transfer spending and revenues, using financial and player transfer data from 2017 and onwards. In terms of the extent of transactions, it can be concluded that player transfers are crucial for the financial management, profitability and stability of football clubs. Accordingly, the highest transfer spending occurs in the leagues with the highest revenue generating capacity. In total, between 2016 and 2021 - €7.5 billion will be diverted from the Big 5 leagues.

References
  1. András K. (2003): Üzleti elemek a sportban, a labdarúgás példáján. PhD értekezés. BKÁE, Budapest, 2003.
  2. Andreff, W. (2017): Le modèle économique du football européen. Polé Sud. 47(2), pp. 41-59.
  3. Bács, B. A. (2022) „Az európai nemzetközi klubfutball bevétel-termelő képességének összehasonlító elemzése”, Economica, 13(3-4). doi: 10.47282/economica/2022/13/3-4/12612.
  4. Brannagan, P.M., Scelles, N., Valenti, M., Inoue, Y., Grix, J. and Perkin, S.J. (2022), “The 2021 European Super League attempt: motivation, outcome, and the future of football”, International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, Vol. 14 No. 1, pp. 169-176.
  5. Carmichael, F., & Thomas, D. (1993). Bargaining in the transfer market: theory and evidence. Applied Economics, 25(12), 1467-1476.
  6. Carmichael, F., Forrest, D., & Simmons, R. (1999). The labour market in association football: who gets transferred and for how much?. Bulletin of Economic Research, 51(2), 125-150.
  7. Deloitte (2018, 2019, 2020, 2021): Football Money League, Deloitte Sports Business Group
  8. Dobson, S., Gerrard, B., & Howe, S. (2000). The determination of transfer fees in English nonleague
  9. Dowling, M., Leopkey, B. and Smith, L. (2018), “Governance in sport: a scoping review”, Journal of Sport Management, Vol. 32 No. 5, pp. 438-451.
  10. Feess, E., & Muehlheusser, G. (2003). The impact of transfer fees on professional sports: an analysis of the new transfer system for European football. Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 105(1), 139-154.
  11. Ferguson, D.G., Stewart, K.G., Jones, J.C.H. and Le Dressay, A.L. (1991), “The pricing of sports events: do teams maximise profit?”, The Journal of Industrial Economics, Vol. 39 No. 3, pp. 297-310.
  12. football. Applied Economics, 32(9), 1145-1152.
  13. Frick, B. (2007). The Football Players' Labor Market: Empirical Evidence from the Major European Leagues. Scottish Journal of Political Economy, 54(3), 422-446.
  14. Garcia del Barrio, P. and Szymanski, S.V. (2009), “Profit maximization and win maximization in football leagues”, Review of Industrial Organization, Vol. 34, pp. 45-68.
  15. Geurts, J. S. (2016). Football players’ transfer price determination based on performance in the Big 5 European leagues. https://run.unl.pt/bitstream/10362/18646/1/Geurts_2016.pdf/ Accessed 01 March 2019.
  16. Ghio, A., Ruberti, M. and Verona, R. (2019), “Financial constraints on sport organisations’ cost efficiency: the impact of financial fair play on Italian soccer clubs”, Applied Economics, Vol. 51 No. 24, pp. 2623-2638.
  17. Hamil, S., Holt, M., Michie, J., Oughton, C. and Shailer, L. (2004), “The corporate governance of professional football clubs”, Corporate Governance, No. 4, pp. 44-51, doi: 10.1108/ 14720700410534967.
  18. Herm, S., Callsen-Bracker, H.M. and Kreis, H. (2014) When the crowd evaluates soccer players' market values: accuracy and evaluation attributes of an online community. Sport Management Review, 17(4), 484–492.
  19. LaLiga (2022), “Lımite de coste de plantilla deportiva”, available at: https://www.laliga.com/ transparencia/gestion-economica/limite-coste-plantilla
  20. Leach, S. and Szymanski, S. (2015), “Making money out of football”, Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 62 No. 1, pp. 25-50.
  21. Majewski, S. (2016). Identification of Factors Determining Market Value of the Most Valuable Football Players. Journal of Management and Business Administration. Central Europe Vol. 24 No. 3/2016 pp. 91-104, ISSN 2450-7814; e-ISSN 2300-858X
  22. Medcalfe, S. (2008). English league transfer prices: is there a racial dimension? A re-examination with new data. Applied Economics Letters, 15(11), 865-867.
  23. Müller, O., Simons, A., & Weinmann, M. (2017). Beyond crowd judgments: Data-driven estimation of market value in association football. European Journal of Operational Research, 263(2), 611-624.
  24. Nauright, J. and Ramfjord, J. (2010), “Who owns England’s game? American professional sporting influences and foreign ownership in the Premier League”, Soccer and Society, Vol. 11 No. 4, pp. 428-441.
  25. Pawlowski, T., Breuer, C., & Hovemann, A. (2010). Top clubs’ performance and the competitive situation in European domestic football competitions. Journal of Sports Economics, 11(2), 186-202.
  26. Peeters, T. and Szymanski, S. (2014), “Financial fair play in European football”, Economic Policy, Vol. 29 No. 78, pp. 343-390.
  27. Roșca, V.I. (2018), “The Europeanisation of Romanian football: What Do UEFA country coefficients reveal?”, Management & Marketing. Challenges for the Knowledge Society, 12(4), pp. 652-673.
  28. Ruberti, M. (2023), "Why does the European football market need a revolution?", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-06-2022-5885
  29. Ruijg, J., & van Ophem, H. (2015). Determinants of football transfers. Applied Economics Letters, 22(1), 12-19.
  30. Sandy, R., Sloane, P.J. and Rosentraub, M.S. (2004), Club and League Objectives: Profit versus Utility Maximisation, the Economics of Sport, Palgrave, London, pp. 10-27.
  31. Solberg, H.A. and Haugen, K.K. (2010), “European Club football: why enormous revenues are not enough?”, Sport in Society, Vol. 13 No. 2, pp. 329-343.
  32. Speight, A., & Thomas, D. (1997). Football league transfers: a comparison of negotiated fees with arbitration settlements. Applied Economics Letters, 4(1), 41-44.
  33. UEFA (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023): Club Licensing Benchmarking Report
Database Logos
DOAJ ProQuest MTMT SHERPA EIRHPLUS EBSCO CROSSREF