Market forces in European soccer

Recent decades have witnessed major changes in the market for European soccer. The most profound were the Bosman ruling, which lifted restrictions in the European labor market for soccer talent, and the introduction of the Champions' League, a high-profile international competition that generates high revenues for participating clubs. This paper studies the effects of these changes on the closeness of national and international competitions, from both a theoretical and an empirical perspective. We show that competitive balance in national competitions has not been affected. International quality differences did increase, mainly as a result of the Bosman ruling.