The impact of a mid‐season change of manager on sporting performance

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to evaluate the impact of a mid‐season change of manager on the sporting performance of professional football teams in the First Division of the Spanish Football League.

Design/methodology/approach

In team sports, the manager takes important decisions that affect the sporting performance of the team. Although the manager is normally hired for a period of at least one season, clubs frequently change managers halfway through that period. Before taking that decision, the Board of Directors probably ask themselves: “Do we sack the manager … or is it better not to?” Data envelopment analysis (DEA) techniques are used to compare the performance of a group of teams that have changed their manager mid‐season to that of teams that have stuck with the same manager for the entire season.

Findings

The main result is that a mid‐season change of manager improves sporting performance, but it does not allow to perform as well as teams that have not changed managers halfway through the season.

Practical implications

Changing managers can be a good move when a football team is not performing well. However, club executives would be recommended to plan the season well beforehand to avoid finding themselves in a situation where they must change managers halfway through.

Originality/value

The foremost contribution of this paper to the existing literature in this field of research is the computation of programme efficiency scores with DEA techniques to deal with the analysis of the effect of a change of manager on the performance of football teams.

Citation

González‐Gómez, F., Picazo‐Tadeo, A.J. and García‐Rubio, M.Á. (2011), "The impact of a mid‐season change of manager on sporting performance", Sport, Business and Management, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 28-42. https://doi.org/10.1108/20426781111107153