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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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    17. 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.
    18. Plattfaut, Ralf & Koch, Julian, 2021. "Preserving the legacy – Why do professional soccer clubs (not) adopt innovative process technologies? A grounded theory study," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 237-250.
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    21. Richau, Lukas & Follert, Florian & Frenger, Monika & Emrich, Eike, 2021. "The Rainmaker?! The impact of investors on transfer fees in the English Premier League," Working Paper 187/2021, Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg.

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