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For managers of sports leagues, it is crucial to produce an attractive competition. For that to happen, it is vital to consider that leagues frequently have more sub-competitions than “just” the championship. In European top football leagues, for instance, four sub-competitions are common (championship, qualification for Champions- or Europa League, avoiding relegation). This paper introduces a new method for measuring competitive intensity (CI) in round-robin sports leagues considering all relevant sub-competitions and applies it to Germany's Bundesliga.

The newly developed model calculates a CI-Index for each sub-competition and the league as a whole. The application to the Bundesliga analyzes its viability and the development of the league's CI over the past 22 seasons.

The newly introduced CI-Indices prove to be a viable tool for evaluating a league's competitive intensity. The application to the Bundesliga shows that the seasonal CI dropped after 2009/10, which can mainly be attributed to a decline in the championship's CI.

The results show that it is important to facilitate a high CI in each of Bundesliga's four sub-competitions. Efforts have to be made to ensure that especially the Europa League remains as attractive as possible for the participating teams and their fans because this sub-competition constantly makes the greatest contribution to the seasonal CI.

The new method measures competitive intensity by quantifying the different sub-competitions and their contribution to the seasonal CI. This allows the organizers of sports leagues to assess the intensity of the individual sub-competitions as well as the league as a whole.

This work aims to analyse money prizes awarded in European football club competitions organised by UEFA and the impact of these prizes on club performance in National Leagues. In pursuing this objective, the authors discuss the overall effect on the competitiveness of national leagues. The ultimate goal is to provide valuable insights and useful indications relating to the future of National and European Professional Football Competitions, a topic of increasingly heated debate. The authors specifically address the possible creation of a European Super League.

In order to test the specific impact of UEFA money prizes on clubs' national performance, the authors applied two multiple regression models, with a sample of clubs participating in four out of the big five National Leagues in European Football over the period 2013–2108. The authors used a series of economic variables as control variables, in keeping with previous studies on similar topics as presented in the literature review.

The results of the analyses show that money prizes have a significant and specific impact on European club competitions organised by UEFA in terms of improving national sport performances for clubs participating in said competitions. More in detail, the authors found this degree of impact not only in the season when this money was awarded but also in the following season.

The originality of the paper lies in the empirical demonstration of the role of European competitions (via UEFA money prizes impacting clubs' national performances) in consolidating a general downward trend in competitive balance in the most important European Leagues.

The Premier League (PL) and the Bundesliga (BL) were chosen for this study due to their fundamentally different approaches to ownership regulation and the distribution of media revenues. Regulation in the PL is very liberal if compared to the BL's 50+1-rule. In the BL, the distribution of media revenues is mainly based on past performance, whereas equal distribution is dominant in the PL. The specific aim of this paper was a longitudinal analysis with a focus on the final outcome of the seasons.

This study looks at competitive intensity (CI) in the men's BL and the English PL because it is a crucial indicator for the long-term success of a sports league and the participants. To calculate the CI of both leagues and of all relevant sub-competitions (championship, Champions League (CL), Europa League (EL), Conference League (CoL) and fight against relegation), a CI index (CII) model was generalised and applied for an examination period spanning from 1998/99 to 2020/21.

Until 2008/09, seasonal CI in the BL was somewhat higher than in the PL. But afterwards, the BL's championship race's CI dropped considerably, while the PL's CI for qualification for the CL rose profoundly. Results also showed that the introduction of the CoL raised the leagues' CI indices.

Besides a methodological contribution with the generalisation of the applied CI index model, the findings are discussed in the context of the above-mentioned regulatory and distribution mechanisms also taking into account the very current discussion regarding general regulatory changes within European football.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the competitive balance of the UEFA Champions League group stages. There are numerous financial and commercial benefits to clubs that participate in this competition. The current paper examines whether the seeding system operated by UEFA is hindering some lower ranked teams from qualification and, thus, the associated benefits.

Data were collected for all UEFA Champions League group stages between1999/2000 and 2013/2014. Data analysis techniques included Herfindahl-Hirschman Index to examine competitive balance and one-way ANOVAs to examine the impact of the current seeding system on club performance.

The findings suggest that there are flaws in the ranking and seeding system used by UEFA, as results show that the competition is competitively imbalanced at the group stage. Additionally, clubs that are continually placed in the highest seeding pot historically tend to accumulate more points and finish in a higher position in the group, thereby giving them a better opportunity to progress further in the competition.

The study has implications for both the clubs competing in the Champions League, who will be affected by the seeding system, and UEFA themselves when considering the sporting integrity of their flagship competition.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper of its kind to examine competitive balance in this competition, and the paper contributes new knowledge that extends the research undertaken in the field previously.

The latest developments in the football industry, the commodification of sport, the excessive focus on profitability and the limited attention to social and environmental aspects have caused a legitimation crisis for football clubs. According to the legitimacy theory, the corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure represents a tool capable of allowing the construction or repair of legitimacy. This study, in line with this theory, aims to analyse the amount of CSR disclosure provided by football clubs and the determinants, related to visibility, of the level of information provided.

This study uses a manual content analysis on the corporate websites of the 80 football clubs that qualified for the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League group stages for the 2019–2020 year to measure the level of CSR disclosure and subsequently a regression analysis to examine the impact of visibility on the amount of information provided.

Results reveal that football clubs still disclose relatively little information about sustainability issues, and that sports performance visibility, human capital visibility and social media visibility positively affect the amount of information that football clubs disclose.

This study extends the horizons of CSR disclosure to the football industry which is still little explored in the academic literature. Furthermore, it extends the scope of legitimacy theory, showing how CSR disclosure can be a means for football clubs to obtain or repair legitimacy. Furthermore, this study extends the list of determinants of the level of CSR disclosure, showing that visibility can influence the amount of CSR information.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the migration of foreign football players that participated in the elite football championship in Greece and the impact of this migratory channel on the athletic success of the football clubs.

The study analyzed a database of all migrant and local athletes that participated in the professional Greek football championship over the period 2001-2013 and performed descriptive and regression analyses.

The regression analyses revealed a positive and significant statistical relation between the investment in foreign talents and the position of the clubs in the championship; however, this impact was more intense for foreign athletes after the formation of the Greek Super League (SL) in 2007 but on the contrary native athletes seem to contribute less to the athletic success than their foreign counterparts.

The findings indicated that valuable resources where spent after SL formation for the acquisition of foreign well-trained athletes. Therefore, this study corroborated arguments in previous research that a basic reason for foreign player migration in football is the increased revenues accrued from the media and sponsors. The study also provided useful policy implications for football managers for improving their decisions on this matter.

The present study fills a gap in the empirical literature and contributes significantly on the ongoing debate about the international athletes’ migration and its impact on athletic success.

In 2009, the Union of European Football Associations approved the Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations. These regulations refer to the requirements of transparency and financial conditions for football clubs participating in European competitions. The purpose of this paper is to combine the managerial and the economic points-of-view in order to understand if Italian football clubs are ready to comply with the new FFP rules.

In the analysis, the authors focus on the main Italian football league, Serie A. Using business model analysis, the authors determine what the main profit determinants of football associations are, through panel data for 15 clubs from 2011-2013. The authors then try to match the statistical and managerial approach.

The results show that the key contributing factors to profits are on the costs side. In particular, the most relevant expenses are player wages. The core revenue for clubs comes from the net profit from player trading, while other income, such as TV rights, commercial and match-day proceeds, have no statistical significance for profit formation.

The main limitation of the analysis is that the survey regarded only on Italian Championship. So it is deeply influenced by the competitive structure of the Italian league that is different from that of other European leagues. Therefore, the authors think that the future developments of this work could be the examination of another European Championship, for example, English Premier League, and the compared analysis of Italian league and other European one.

There is a close-link between costs and profitability, and especially between expenditure on players and the ability to close the financial year with a profit. Clubs must address the issue of player wages in order to follow a path of economic recovery towards profitability.

In the work the authors put together managerial point of view and economical one, in order to understand how FFP can impact on profitability of football clubs. The authors use an empirical econometrics model to test the hypothesis about business model of Italian Clubs.

The football industry presents a unique setting for intellectual capital analysis. This study aims to investigate the online intellectual capital disclosure level of top football clubs and to analyse the impact of some explanatory factors on the level of information provided.

The authors use manual content analysis of the websites to measure intellectual capital disclosure levels along with a regression analysis on a sample of the 80 football clubs that qualified for the group stages of the 2019–20 UEFA Champions and Europa League.

Empirical results reveal that football clubs disclose a limited amount of information regarding intangibles on their websites. In addition, they show that sports performance, technical market value and social media visibility have a positive effect on the disclosure level.

This study extends the horizon of intellectual capital disclosure to a sector (football) that is currently under-explored and broadens the list of antecedents of the intellectual capital disclosure level.

This study derives a new framework that comprehensively assesses management quality along four dimensions, namely Sporting Success; Financial Performance; Fan Welfare Maximization; and Leadership and Governance. Filled with measurable key performance indicators (KPIs), these dimensions serve the purpose of objectively quantifying the relevant success factors. Ultimately, the performance in all dimensions indicates a football club's management quality.

The study relies first on a review of the literature in the field of both general management and sports. Second, the authors adapt the balanced scorecard framework to the field of professional football and use a set of KPIs to assess the management quality of the Bundesliga teams over the seasons 2016/17 and 2017/18. Third, the authors validate the relative weights of the four dimensions composing the so-called “Football Management Quality score” (i.e. FoMa Q-Score) using expert interviews.

Two movements characterize the score development in 2017/18 compared to 2016/17: first, scores appear more contracted than previously. Second, both average and median scores improved, suggesting a general improvement in the management quality within the Bundesliga.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first exploratory study deriving and measuring relevant key criteria for managing football clubs and illustrating the findings in a ranking. The aim of this study is to establish a model that impacts both academia and practice. By utilizing existing management literature and adjusting it to football particularities, the newfound knowledge begins to close the gap in sport management literature.

This paper aims to propose an analysis of financial regulation practices, identified thanks to an extensive benchmark carried out in eight European professional sports leagues.

Between 1970 and 2018, 81 French football clubs went bankrupt. The paper proposes an analysis of financial regulation practices in eight European professional sports leagues to enhance the prevention of bankruptcy of French football clubs. Three research questions are addressed: What are the financial and accounting disclosure practices in the main professional leagues? What assessment tools are employed to evaluate the financial risk and budgetary feasibility? What financial support measures exist for clubs and how are insolvency proceedings initiated by clubs? To identify financial regulation practices in professional sport, a selection of leagues was made based on their economic importance, specific regulatory tools used, and their approach to financial difficulties and the handling of insolvency proceedings.

Through an examination of financial regulation practices in other leagues, three main findings are highlighted: The significance of required financial documents and deadlines varies depending on the competition organizer; some leagues utilize ratio-based assessments rather than relying solely on opinions from financial oversight bodies; certain leagues have established assistance processes for troubled clubs as opposed to punitive measures resulting in administrative regulations.

This study proposes new financial regulation modalities to prevent the bankruptcy of French football clubs. Firstly, a reform management control is suggested. Secondly, the engagement of stakeholders in bankruptcy prevention is recommended. Lastly, the implementation of a dedicated policy to support clubs facing difficulties is proposed.

The French football federation and the professional league are important actors in the European football. Many bankruptcies are noted in these championships and since the COVID crisis, the financial situation of the clubs has deteriorated, pointing to a strong risk of bankruptcy in the coming years.