Spanish Football

The authors analyze the financial situation of the Spanish football industry. They first argue that a relevant analysis of the industry's financial results relies on a careful description of how historical and cultural factors have influenced its organization. Moreover, they stress the important relationship between the industry and television. The authors suggest that the situation of the Spanish football industry suffers from some structural weaknesses in its accounts. However, the situation seems less severe than in other major European football leagues, partly because local authorities in Spain have strong incentives to back football teams.Publicad

French professional football: how much different?

International audience18.1 INTRODUCTION France, in common with other leading European football nations, was affected by two significant economic shocks in the 1990s. One was the globalisation of the labour market for football players which occurred after the Bosman case in 1995; the other was a substantial change in the format and financial endowment of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) club competitions, accelerated by the failed attempt by Media-Partners in 1999 to create a European Super-League. How has French professional football adjusted to this double shock since 2000? Did French football adjust better or worse than the other major European leagues to the changing financial realities of professional football at the highest level? Many French sports analysts are inclined to cite the French Ligue 1 (FL1) as the best-managed football league in Europe. It is suggested that the French exception copes better than others with football's financial pressures. This exception has been praised as a virtuous example for other European major football leagues such as the English Premier League (EPL), Italian Lega Calcio (ILC), Spanish Liga de Futbol (SLF) and German Bundesliga (GBL). Some French official reports went as far as to recommend making a rule out of this exception by extending it to all leagues under UEFA's jurisdiction (Collin, 2004; Denis, 2003). Another report more modestly questions the preconditions for French football clubs to become both more competitive on the pitch, and economically sound (Besson, 2008). The claimed advantages of the French model may have been influential in informing the thinking underlying the UEFA Financial Fair Play rules. The French model, however, is not universally admired throughout Europe, especially in the countries with the most powerful football leagues. There are at least three criticisms. First, it is argued that relatively weak sporting performance at the European level is the price paid for sound financial management. An extreme variant of this argument, often voiced abroad, is that the French football authorities focus on sound finance to the detriment of sporting performance. Second, smaller deficits and debts may be more an index of the French clubs' lack of competitiveness than an example of exemplary management. Third, in some countries (for example, the UK, Ireland and the Czech Republic), the French football league and economy are considered to be too heavily regulated , to the detriment of both competitiveness and the level of sporting performance. Rather than dismiss such views out of hand as belonging to the realm of caricature, this chapter considers whether they contain any grain of truth, and searches for a balanced response. Section 18.2 begins with an assessment of French football sporting and financial performance. Section 18.3 examines the inputs mobilised for attaining such performance , in order to evaluate in section 18.4 the efficiency of professional football clubs in France. Against the background of a typically optimistic financial self-assessment on the part of French football clubs, section 18.5 examines the sources and structure of French professional football: how much different? 299 professional football finance, as well as the role of the league's auditing body. Section 18.6 presents a more personal analysis, stressing the football clubs' soft budget constraint and a vicious circle between the increasing commercial value of TV broadcasting rights, and skyrocketing club payrolls. Section 18.7 concludes by drawing some brief conclusions about the future of French professional football. 18.2 A TRADE-OFF BETWEEN FINANCIAL AND SPORTING PERFORMANCE

Evaluating Rent Dissipation in the Spanish Football Industry

International audienceThis article proposes to evaluate empirically the consequences of the rent-seeking behavior of football clubs on their costs. The empirical work entails estimating a football wage, result, and demand system with data on clubs competing in the first and second Spanish leagues during the 1996-2003 seasons. The estimation sheds light on wage distortions that differ from 45% to 52% throughout the period considered. This provides an interesting illustration of the financial difficulties faced recently by many European football clubs

Multi-Dimensional Assessment of Transit System Efficiency and Incentive-based Subsidy Allocation

Over the past several decades, contending with traffic congestion and air pollution has emerged as one of the imperative issues across the world. Development of a transit-oriented urban transport system has been realized by an increasing number of countries and administrations as one of the most effective strategies for mitigating congestion and pollution problems. Despite the rapid development of public transportation system, doubts regarding the efficiency of the system and financing sustainability have arisen. Significant amount of public resources have been invested into public transport; however complaints about low service quality and unreliable transit system performance have increasingly arisen from all walks of life. Evaluating transit operational efficiency from various levels and designing incentive-based mechanisms to allocate limited subsidies/resources have become one of the most imperative challenges faced by responsible authorities to sustain the public transport system development and improve its performance and levels of service. After a comprehensive review of existing literature, this dissertation aims to develop a multi-dimensional framework composed of a series of robust multi-criteria evaluation models to assess the operational and financial performance of transit systems at various levels of application (i.e. region/city level, operator level, and route level). It further contributes to bridging the gap between transit efficiency evaluation and the subsequent subsidy allocation by developing a set of incentive-based resource allocation models taking various levels of operational and financial efficiencies into consideration. Case studies using real-world transit data will be performed to validate the performance and applicability of the proposed models

The beautiful game? an econometric study of audiences, gambling and efficiency in English football

Football is the world's most watched sport. This thesis investigates three related aspects of football in England using econometric techniques. An investigation of the reasons why people watch football, both live and televised matches is undertaken. Particular attention is paid to outcome uncertainty, both match and seasonal. Two equations are developed to explain match attendance and BSkyB television audiences for the 1993/94 English Premier League season. In the match attendance equation capacity constraints are accounted for by use of the Tobit model. It is found that quality factors, outcome uncertainty and supporter loyalty are all important determinants of football attendances but that televising a match on BSkyB does not significantly affect audiences. The second study focuses on the efficiency of the fixed odds betting market for football in England. It is the efficiency of how market participants utilise available information that is tested. A model of bookmaker behaviour is presented in which the bookmaker maximises their expected share of the total amount bet. It is found that an expected profit maximising bookmaker could set market inefficient odds. Several empirical tests using the ordered probit model with data on prices, publicly available information and experts' predictions are carried out. Evidence of market inefficiency is identified offering profitable betting opportunities. Productive efficiency of football clubs is the focus of the third study. It investigates how efficiently clubs utilise their inputs to produce playing success. Unlike most previous sports productive efficiency studies, true inputs (i.e. playing ability proxied by wages) and not intermediate outputs (e.g. goals scored) are used in the efficiency estimations. Two techniques, econometrics and Data Envelopment Analysis are used, allowing a useful comparison of their relative benefits. Efficient clubs are identified and the features which make them efficient discussed

Measurement and evaluation of managerial efficiency in English league football : a stochastic frontier analysis

[From the introduction]:The thesis is organised as follows. In Chapters 1 and 2 we present a review of the existing literature. Chapter 1 analyses the role of incentives and human capital attributes as mechanisms for determining performance. Much of the previous literature analyses manager performance using wage equations. What is unique in our approach is that we are able to generate a direct measure of managerial performance. The background to the methodology used is provided in Chapter 2. Here we explore the growing literature on production frontier analysis. We are particularly interested in the available estimation procedures and how previous sports studies have utilised this framework in estimating efficiency. A discussion of the football industry is the focus of Chapter 3, while in Chapter 4 we develop the theoretical model of manager performance. Data and methodological issues are addressed in Chapter 5. Chapters 6 and 7 contain the empirical results. In Chapter 6 we generate managerial efficiency scores and consider how alternative input and output measures and alternative estimation procedures affect these scores. Using the preferred model from Chapter 6, Chapter 7 provides a detailed account of how human capital factors and incentives shape efficiency and some preliminary results as to whether the manager actually matters. Finally, Chapter 8 provides some conclusions and recommendations in the light of the empirical results

Alternative approaches to financial and sporting performance measurement in English professional football

The purpose of this thesis is to combine, in a new way, variables of financial performance and sporting performance in professional football clubs to provide a new measure of overall performance. Previous literature on the topic indicates that the choice of variables used to measure sporting and financial performance has been haphazard and inconsistent. Subsequently, this thesis devises and tests a model that provides a new holistic measure of overall performance and can be used to evaluate the performance of professional football clubs in England. The model was produced using statistical analysis techniques to ensure that the correct variables were included and weighting factors on each variable added a further robustness to the model. The model is also timely in relation to new regulations throughout the European game such as Financial Fair Play which aims to alleviate the debt problem across professional football and encourage clubs to spend within their means. The thesis concluded a number of findings in relation to English professional football clubs since 1992. First, there has been a move towards utility maximisation among English clubs. Second, the foreign ownership model has led to an improvement in sporting performance and a decline in financial performance. Third, there is evidence to suggest that there has been a relationship between rising revenues and rising costs in English football during the last twenty years and that this shows no signs of abating. The central contribution to knowledge o f this thesis is the production of the model. The model highlights, for the first time, the relationship between variables. The thesis also provides a contribution to knowledge when analysing the performance o f clubs in the English football industry since the formation of the English Premier League in 1992. A further contribution is the potential application of the model to other professional team leagues and sports both in the UK and overseas. Such a model can be used by professional sports clubs, academics and practitioners alike to ascertain how a given club is performing in relation to its closest competitors. The model can also be used by governing bodies to inform and implement changes at policy level. Furthermore, the model and its uses are not exclusively limited to the UK given the Eurocentric nature of the work

Operational Research: Methods and Applications

Throughout its history, Operational Research has evolved to include a variety of methods, models and algorithms that have been applied to a diverse and wide range of contexts. This encyclopedic article consists of two main sections: methods and applications. The first aims to summarise the up-to-date knowledge and provide an overview of the state-of-the-art methods and key developments in the various subdomains of the field. The second offers a wide-ranging list of areas where Operational Research has been applied. The article is meant to be read in a nonlinear fashion. It should be used as a point of reference or first-port-of-call for a diverse pool of readers: academics, researchers, students, and practitioners. The entries within the methods and applications sections are presented in alphabetical order. The authors dedicate this paper to the 2023 Turkey/Syria earthquake victims. We sincerely hope that advances in OR will play a role towards minimising the pain and suffering caused by this and future catastrophes

Operational Research: Methods and Applications

Throughout its history, Operational Research has evolved to include a variety of methods, models and algorithms that have been applied to a diverse and wide range of contexts. This encyclopedic article consists of two main sections: methods and applications. The first aims to summarise the up-to-date knowledge and provide an overview of the state-of-the-art methods and key developments in the various subdomains of the field. The second offers a wide-ranging list of areas where Operational Research has been applied. The article is meant to be read in a nonlinear fashion. It should be used as a point of reference or first-port-of-call for a diverse pool of readers: academics, researchers, students, and practitioners. The entries within the methods and applications sections are presented in alphabetical order