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Player contracts, athletic and financial performance of the Greek football clubs

2014; Inderscience Publishers; Volume: 16; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1504/gber.2014.060181

1745-1329

Panagiotis Dimitropoulos, Vasilios Limperopoulos,

Sports, Gender, and Society

The scope of this paper is to examine the relation between the athletic and financial performance of Greek football clubs and how the investment in player contracts (playing talent) impacts this relation. We selected a sample of 20 football clubs participating in the three professional divisions of the national championship, which refers to the period from 2004/05 to 2008/09. By applying a panel data methodology, results indicated that the higher the investment in player contracts is, the more successful is the club on the field. However, as the investment in player contracts by football managers is increased, the club is becoming more unprofitable and insolvent suggesting that these decisions are not based on economic standards, a fact which verifies previous arguments that football clubs in Europe aim to maximise the athletic performance and not the financial. Useful policy implications and avenues for future research are also provided.