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Vertical restraints in soccer: Financial fair play and the English Premier League

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  • PEETERS, Thomas
  • SZYMANSKI, Stefan

Abstract

In 2010 UEFA, the governing body of European soccer, announced a set of financial restraints, that clubs must observe when seeking to enter its competitions, notably the UEFA Champions League. We characterize these “Financial Fair Play” (FFP) regulations as a form of vertical restraint and assess their impact on the intensity of competition in the English Premier League. We build a structural empirical model to show that introducing FFP would substantially reduce competition, resulting in lower average payrolls, while average revenues would hardly be affected. Depending on the exact regime, wage to turnover ratios would decline by 8% to 15%.

Suggested Citation

  • PEETERS, Thomas & SZYMANSKI, Stefan, 2012. "Vertical restraints in soccer: Financial fair play and the English Premier League," Working Papers 2012028, University of Antwerp, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ant:wpaper:2012028
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    Cited by:

    1. Luis C. Corchón & Marco Serena, 2016. "Properties of Contests," Working Papers tax-mpg-rps-2018-10, Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.
    2. Matt Andrews & Peter Harrington, 2016. "Off Pitch: Football’s Financial Integrity Weaknesses, and How to Strengthen them," CID Working Papers 311, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    3. Budzinski, Oliver, 2014. "The competition economics of financial fair play," Ilmenau Economics Discussion Papers 85, Ilmenau University of Technology, Institute of Economics.
    4. Vöpel, Henning, 2013. "Is Financial Fair Play really justified? An economic and legal assessment of UEFA's Financial Fair Play rules," HWWI Policy Papers 79, Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI).
    5. Egon Franck, 2014. "Financial Fair Play in European Club Football: What Is It All About?," International Journal of Sport Finance, Fitness Information Technology, vol. 9(3), pages 193-217, August.
    6. Stephen Morrow, 2014. "Football finances," Chapters, in: John Goddard & Peter Sloane (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Professional Football, chapter 6, pages 80-99, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Girish Ramchandani & Daniel Plumley & Adam Davis & Rob Wilson, 2023. "A Review of Competitive Balance in European Football Leagues before and after Financial Fair Play Regulations," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-15, February.
    8. Peter Sloane, 2014. "Club objectives," Chapters, in: John Goddard & Peter Sloane (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Professional Football, chapter 1, pages 13-22, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Anil Yildizparlak, 2018. "An Application of Contest Success Functions for Draws on European Soccer," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(8), pages 1191-1212, December.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Vertical restraints; Soccer; Financial Fair Play;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L42 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - Vertical Restraints; Resale Price Maintenance; Quantity Discounts
    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation
    • L83 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Sports; Gambling; Restaurants; Recreation; Tourism

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