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Europe’s Elite Football: Financial Growth, Sporting Success, Transfer Investment, and Private Majority Investors

Author

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  • Marc Rohde

    (Institute of Sport Economics and Sport Management, German Sport University Cologne, Am Sportpark Muengersdorf 6, 50933 Cologne, Germany)

  • Christoph Breuer

    (Institute of Sport Economics and Sport Management, German Sport University Cologne, Am Sportpark Muengersdorf 6, 50933 Cologne, Germany)

Abstract

Europe’s elite football clubs are a small group of about 30 clubs mostly originating from the Big Five leagues in England, Italy, Spain, Germany, and France. These clubs top Deloitte’s Football Money League ranking Europe’s top football clubs by revenues. They also win the vast majority of national and European football competitions, and account for the major share of FIFA World Cup appearances. Nevertheless, empirical analyses studying the antecedents of financial success of this peculiar sample are rare. This paper extends previous research by building an empirical model of financial performance and applying it to a unique, high-quality dataset of the top 30 EU football clubs by club revenues analyzed over ten consecutive seasons from 2004 to 2013. Fixed effects models are performed to account for time trends and club fixed effects. The results show that financial success is driven by national and international sporting success, as well as brand value; sporting success is driven by team investments, and team investments tend to be driven by (foreign) private majority investors.

Suggested Citation

  • Marc Rohde & Christoph Breuer, 2016. "Europe’s Elite Football: Financial Growth, Sporting Success, Transfer Investment, and Private Majority Investors," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 4(2), pages 1-20, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijfss:v:4:y:2016:i:2:p:12-:d:71301
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    13. Pedro Garcia‐del‐Barrio & Pablo Agnese, 2023. "To comply or not to comply? How a UEFA wage‐to‐revenue requirement might affect the sport and managerial performance of soccer clubs," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 44(2), pages 767-786, March.
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    17. BALLIAUW, Matteo & VERLINDEN, Thomas & DE CROOCQ, Lisa & FOBE, Aline & VAN DEN SPIEGEL, Tomas, 2018. "A managerial approach to corporate sports hospitality: The case of Belgian football," Working Papers 2018008, University of Antwerp, Faculty of Business and Economics.
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    19. Budzinski, Oliver & Kunz-Kaltenhäuser, Philipp, 2020. "Promoting or restricting competition? - The 50plus1-rule in German football," Ilmenau Economics Discussion Papers 141, Ilmenau University of Technology, Institute of Economics.
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    21. Nicolas Scelles & Boris Helleu & Christophe Durand & Liliane Bonnal & Stephen Morrow, 2017. "Explaining the Number of Social Media Fans for North American and European Professional Sports Clubs with Determinants of Their Financial Value," Post-Print halshs-02110645, HAL.
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