THE DEGREE OF COMPETITION IN THE EUROPEAN FOOTBALL LEAGUES: A STATISTICAL APPROACH

Abstract

As a professional sport, professional football teams in a league compete in imperfect market conditions since every team in a professional football league may be known by their differentiated product (i.e. the quality of football they play). If the competition level increases, the quality of football being played may also increase. Thus, consumers`(i.e. football spectators) value of money spent on football should increase too. Thus, this paper tries to implement the above mentioned economic principle through a statistical method on nine European countries football leagues, in an individual and comparative manner. During the estimation period, it is calculated that, on average, the highest level of football competition took place in France, whereas Turkish football came last.football ranking, European Football, optimal football league