IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0156504.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Anatomy of the Global Football Player Transfer Network: Club Functionalities versus Network Properties

Author

Listed:
  • Xiao Fan Liu
  • Yu-Liang Liu
  • Xin-Hang Lu
  • Qi-Xuan Wang
  • Tong-Xing Wang

Abstract

Professional association football is a game of talent. The success of a professional club hinges largely on its ability of assembling the best team. Building on a dataset of player transfer records among more than 400 clubs in 24 world-wide top class leagues from 2011 to 2015, this study aims to relate a club’s success to its activities in the player transfer market from a network perspective. We confirm that modern professional football is indeed a money game, in which larger investment spent on the acquisition of talented players generally yields better team performance. However, further investigation shows that professional football clubs can actually play different strategies in surviving or even excelling this game, and the success of strategies is strongly associated to their network properties in the football player transfer network.

Suggested Citation

  • Xiao Fan Liu & Yu-Liang Liu & Xin-Hang Lu & Qi-Xuan Wang & Tong-Xing Wang, 2016. "The Anatomy of the Global Football Player Transfer Network: Club Functionalities versus Network Properties," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(6), pages 1-14, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0156504
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0156504
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0156504
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0156504&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0156504?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Linyuan Lü & Tao Zhou & Qian-Ming Zhang & H. Eugene Stanley, 2016. "The H-index of a network node and its relation to degree and coreness," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 7(1), pages 1-7, April.
    2. Bernd Frick, 2007. "The Football Players' Labor Market: Empirical Evidence From The Major European Leagues," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 54(3), pages 422-446, July.
    3. Sen, Amartya, 1973. "On Economic Inequality," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198281931.
    4. An, Feng & Gao, Xiangyun & Guan, Jianhe & Li, Huajiao & Liu, Qian, 2016. "An evolution analysis of executive-based listed company relationships using complex networks," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 447(C), pages 276-285.
    5. Hikmat Ullah Khan & Ali Daud & Tahir Afzal Malik, 2015. "MIIB: A Metric to Identify Top Influential Bloggers in a Community," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(9), pages 1-15, September.
    6. Giorgio Fagiolo & Marina Mastrorillo, 2014. "Does Human Migration Affect International Trade? A Complex-Network Perspective," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(5), pages 1-20, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Novillo, Álvaro & Gong, Bingnan & Martínez, Johann H. & Resta, Ricardo & del Campo, Roberto López & Buldú, Javier M., 2024. "A multilayer network framework for soccer analysis," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    2. Jon Manuel Vega & Asier Gonzalez-Artetxe & Jon Ander Aguinaco & Asier Los Arcos, 2020. "Assessing the Anthropometric Profile of Spanish Elite Reserve Soccer Players by Playing Position over a Decade," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(15), pages 1-9, July.
    3. David Matesanz & Florian Holzmayer & Benno Torgler & Sascha L Schmidt & Guillermo J Ortega, 2018. "Transfer market activities and sportive performance in European first football leagues: A dynamic network approach," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(12), pages 1-16, December.
    4. G. P. Clemente & A. Cornaro, 2023. "Community detection in attributed networks for global transfer market," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 325(1), pages 57-83, June.
    5. Eremin, G., 2018. "Analysis of Factors Influencing the Pricing of Transfers in European Professional Football," Journal of the New Economic Association, New Economic Association, vol. 40(4), pages 174-183.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gajdos, Thibault & Maurin, Eric, 2004. "Unequal uncertainties and uncertain inequalities: an axiomatic approach," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 116(1), pages 93-118, May.
    2. Juan Antonio Duro & Jordi Teixidó-Figueras & Emilio Padilla, 2017. "The Causal Factors of International Inequality in $$\hbox {CO}_{2}$$ CO 2 Emissions Per Capita: A Regression-Based Inequality Decomposition Analysis," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 67(4), pages 683-700, August.
    3. Vincenzo Atella & Jay Coggins & Federico Perali, 2005. "Aversion to inequality in Italy and its determinants," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 2(2), pages 117-144, January.
    4. Martens, Karel & Golub, Aaron & Robinson, Glenn, 2012. "A justice-theoretic approach to the distribution of transportation benefits: Implications for transportation planning practice in the United States," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 684-695.
    5. Alan B. Krueger, 2002. "Inequality, Too Much of a Good Thing," Working Papers 845, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    6. Thibault Gajdos & John Weymark, 2005. "Multidimensional generalized Gini indices," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 26(3), pages 471-496, October.
    7. Marja Riihelä & Risto Sullström & Matti Tuomala, 2001. "What Lies Behind the Unprecedented Increase in Income Inequality in Finland During the 1990's," Working Papers 0102, Tampere University, Faculty of Management and Business, Economics.
    8. Duro, Juan Antonio, 2012. "On the automatic application of inequality indexes in the analysis of the international distribution of environmental indicators," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 1-7.
    9. Rolf Aaberge & Anders Björklund & Markus Jäntti & Mårten Palme & Peder J. Pedersen & Nina Smith & Tom Wennemo, 2002. "Income Inequality and Income Mobility in the Scandinavian Countries Compared to the United States," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 48(4), pages 443-469, December.
    10. Lenten, Liam J.A. & Geerling, Wayne & Kónya, László, 2012. "A hedonic model of player wage determination from the Indian Premier League auction: Further evidence," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 60-71.
    11. Allanson, Paul & Hubbard, Lionel, 1999. "On the Comparative Evaluation of Agricultural Income Distributions in the European Union," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 26(1), pages 1-17, March.
    12. Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell & Bernard Van Praag, 2003. "Income Satisfaction Inequality and its Causes," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 1(2), pages 107-127, August.
    13. Duclos, Jean-Yves, 2006. "Liberté ou égalité?," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 82(4), pages 441-476, décembre.
    14. Jha, Raghbendra & Gaiha, Raghav & Pandey, Manoj K. & Kaicker, Nidhi, 2013. "Food subsidy, income transfer and the poor: A comparative analysis of the public distribution system in India's states," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 35(6), pages 887-908.
    15. Belhadj, Besma & Limam, Mohamed, 2012. "Unidimensional and multidimensional fuzzy poverty measures: New approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 995-1002.
    16. Jacques Silber, 1994. "Income Distribution, Tax Structure, and the Measurement of Tax Progressivity," Public Finance Review, , vol. 22(1), pages 86-102, January.
    17. Pedro R. D. Bom & Aitor Goti, 2018. "Public Capital and the Labor Income Share," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-17, October.
    18. Heckman, James, 2001. "Accounting for Heterogeneity, Diversity and General Equilibrium in Evaluating Social Programmes," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(475), pages 654-699, November.
    19. Theodore Koutmeridis, 2013. "The Market for "Rough Diamonds": Information, Finance and Wage Inequality," CDMA Working Paper Series 201307, Centre for Dynamic Macroeconomic Analysis, revised 14 Oct 2013.
    20. Pritha Dev & Blessing U. Mberu & Roland Pongou, 2016. "Ethnic Inequality: Theory and Evidence from Formal Education in Nigeria," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64(4), pages 603-660.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0156504. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.