IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/baf/cbafwp/cbafwp22189.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Has Financial Fair Play Changed European Football?

Author

Listed:
  • Donato Masciandaro
  • Ariela Caglio
  • Sébastien Laffitte
  • Gianmarco Ottaviano

Abstract

In 2011 UEFA, the governing body of European football, introduced the Financial Fair Play Regulation (FFPR), consisting of a set of financial restraints to be met by clubs as a prerequisite for participation to its competitions. The aim of the FFPR was to introduce financial discipline into the clubs’ decision making processes, and ultimately protect the longterm viability of the European football industry. The reform was criticized because of possible unintended detrimental consequences. In particular, Peeters and Szymanski 2014 provided a model-based ex-ante simulation analysis showing that the reform would increase the profitability of clubs, but also tilt the competitive balance in favor of the top teams, thus reducing the interest of fans and investors as one of the main attractions in sports is precisely that the best team does not always win. Exploiting an original dataset between the seasons 2007-2008 and 2019-2020, we provide an ex-post econometric evaluation of the effects of the introduction of the FFPR revealing causal evidence that largely vindicates those ex-ante predictions.

Suggested Citation

  • Donato Masciandaro & Ariela Caglio & Sébastien Laffitte & Gianmarco Ottaviano, 2022. "Has Financial Fair Play Changed European Football?," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 22189, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    • Handle: RePEc:baf:cbafwp:cbafwp22189
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://repec.unibocconi.it/baffic/baf/papers/cbafwp22189.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christine Cooper & Joanne Johnston, 2012. "Vulgate accountability: insights from the field of football," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 25(4), pages 602-634, May.
    2. Egon Franck, 2010. "Private Firm, Public Corporation or Member’s Association Governance Structures in European Football," International Journal of Sport Finance, Fitness Information Technology, vol. 5(2), pages 108-127, May.
    3. Simon Freyaldenhoven & Christian Hansen & Jorge Perez Perez & Jesse Shapiro, 2021. "Visualization, Identification, and stimation in the Linear Panel Event-Study Design," Working Papers 21-44, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    4. Clément de Chaisemartin & Xavier D'Haultfœuille, 2020. "Two-Way Fixed Effects Estimators with Heterogeneous Treatment Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(9), pages 2964-2996, September.
    5. Orley C. Ashenfelter & Daniel S. Hosken & Matthew C. Weinberg, 2013. "The Price Effects of a Large Merger of Manufacturers: A Case Study of Maytag-Whirlpool," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 239-261, February.
    6. repec:oup:ecpoli:v:29:y:2014:i:78:p:343-390 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Baxter, Jane & Carlsson-Wall, Martin & Chua, Wai Fong & Kraus, Kalle, 2019. "Accounting and passionate interests: The case of a Swedish football club," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 21-40.
    8. Orley Ashenfelter & Daniel Hosken, 2010. "The Effect of Mergers on Consumer Prices: Evidence from Five Mergers on the Enforcement Margin," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(3), pages 417-466.
    9. Hoey, Sam & Peeters, Thomas & Principe, Francesco, 2021. "The transfer system in European football: A pro-competitive no-poaching agreement?," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    10. Thomas Peeters & Stefan Szymanski, 2014. "Financial fair play in European football [v. National Football League, 560 (The Supreme Court May 24, 2010)]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 29(78), pages 343-390.
    11. Brantly Callaway & Andrew Goodman-Bacon & Pedro H. C. Sant'Anna, 2021. "Difference-in-Differences with a Continuous Treatment," Papers 2107.02637, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2024.
    12. Christine Cooper & Joanne Johnston, 2012. "Vulgate accountability: insights from the field of football," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 25(4), pages 602-634, May.
    13. Markus Sass, 2016. "Glory Hunters, Sugar Daddies, and Long-Term Competitive Balance Under UEFA Financial Fair Play," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 17(2), pages 148-158, February.
    14. repec:eme:aaaj00:09513571211225060 is not listed on IDEAS
    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. Budzinski, Oliver, 2024. "Financial regulation in sport championships as an anticompetitive institution," Ilmenau Economics Discussion Papers 187, Ilmenau University of Technology, Institute of Economics.

    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. Roth, Jonathan & Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C. & Bilinski, Alyssa & Poe, John, 2023. "What’s trending in difference-in-differences? A synthesis of the recent econometrics literature," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 235(2), pages 2218-2244.
    2. Marc Rohde & Christoph Breuer, 2018. "Competing by investments or efficiency? Exploring financial and sporting efficiency of club ownership structures in European football," Sport Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(5), pages 563-581, December.
    3. Nappert, Pier-Luc & Plante, Maude, 2023. "The assetization of baseball players: Instrumentalizing promise with signing bonuses and human capital contracts," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    4. Rik Chakraborti & Gavin Roberts, 2023. "How price-gouging regulation undermined COVID-19 mitigation: county-level evidence of unintended consequences," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 196(1), pages 51-83, July.
    5. Christos Genakos & Andreas Lamprinidis & James Walker, 2023. "Evaluating merger effects," CEP Discussion Papers dp1921, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    6. Cl'ement de Chaisemartin & Diego Ciccia Xavier D'Haultf{oe}uille & Felix Knau, 2024. "Two-way Fixed Effects and Differences-in-Differences Estimators in Heterogeneous Adoption Designs," Papers 2405.04465, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2024.
    7. Di, Wenhua & Pattison, Nathaniel, 2023. "Industry Specialization and Small Business Lending," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    8. Ariane Charpin & Joanna Piechucka, 2020. "Merger Efficiency Gains: Evidence from a Large Transport Merger in France," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1843, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    9. Marie-Laure Allain & Claire Chambolle & Stéphane Turolla & Sofia Villas-Boas, 2013. "The Impact of Retail Mergers on Food Prices: Evidence from France," Working Papers hal-00920460, HAL.
    10. Calderón, Mariana & Cortés, Josué & Pérez Pérez, Jorge & Salcedo, Alejandrina, 2023. "Disentangling the Effects of Large Minimum Wage and VAT Changes on Prices: Evidence from Mexico," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    11. Holler, Emanuel & Rickert, Dennis, 2022. "How resale price maintenance and loss leading affect upstream cartel stability: Anatomy of a coffee cartel," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    12. Kurt Schmidheiny & Sebastian Siegloch, 2023. "On event studies and distributed‐lags in two‐way fixed effects models: Identification, equivalence, and generalization," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(5), pages 695-713, August.
    13. Lee, Bill & Carlisle, Liam, 2024. "Interpreting an escape from an eviction trap as a social account: A Gramscian reading of a credit union’s policies in support of social housing tenants," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    14. Stephen Martin, 2012. "Market Structure and Market Performance," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 40(2), pages 87-108, March.
    15. Shibashish Mukherjee & Sorin M.S. Krammer, 2024. "When the going gets tough : Board gender diversity in the wake of a major crisis," Post-Print hal-04522722, HAL.
    16. N. A. Osokin, 2018. "Win vs. Profit maximization: optimal strategy for managing organizational performance of russian football clubs," Strategic decisions and risk management, Real Economy Publishing House, issue 2.
    17. Cl'ement de Chaisemartin & Xavier D'Haultf{oe}uille, 2021. "Two-Way Fixed Effects and Differences-in-Differences with Heterogeneous Treatment Effects: A Survey," Papers 2112.04565, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2022.
    18. Michael A. Salinger, 2024. "The 2023 Merger Guidelines and The Role of Economics," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 65(1), pages 243-253, August.
    19. Marie-Laure Allain & Claire Chambolle & Stéphane Turolla, 2022. "The Effect of Input Price Discrimination on Retail Prices: Theory and Evidence from France," Working Papers SMART 22-06, INRAE UMR SMART.
    20. Yong Geng & Wei Liu & Hanshu Chen & Xinyu Zou, 2023. "The Spillover Effects of Environmental Regulations: A Perspective of Chinese Unregulated Firms' Tax Burden," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 31(2), pages 84-111, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    accounting measurement; Financial fair play (FFP); financial sustainability; team’s quality; competitive balance.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J30 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:baf:cbafwp:cbafwp22189. 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: Michela Pozzi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cbbocit.html .

    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.