Limits of softness in professional team sport clubs

This chapter analyses cases where professional team sport clubs have failed financially without being rescued by means of various forms of soft budget constraints. It focuses on clubs where extreme conditions of softness prevail while this is still not soft enough to ensure survival. Following an overview of insolvencies in European football, the chapter consists of two case studies. The first case is the Scottish football club Glasgow Rangers which went bankrupt and was liquidated despite a highly supportive environment. The second case are very different in terms of scale, location and type of sport. It details the collapse of the Danish team handball club GOG. Together with the overview of insolvencies, the two case studies provide detailed evidence about some of the mechanisms at play in clubs that collapse despite extremely soft budget constraints. The concluding section provides an important addition to the theory of soft budget constraints in professional football and other sports by outlining under what conditions there are limits to softness in European professional team sports.