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Football is deployed into various segments and consists of a complex value chain, with interrelationships and circularities. It is relevant in various segments and therefore it is important to understand the structure. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to present a model of a football value chain and the managerial implications inherent to this chain.

This research used a field study as its methodology, developing a semi-structured questionnaire containing open-ended questions about the representativeness of the football value chain. In-depth interviews with specialists in football were performed to collect data.

The results of the interviews indicated that the theoretical model is representative. Furthermore, through validation, the relevance and representativeness of the football value chain was shown, as well as its interrelationships with the other commodity and service segments. In addition, it was found that this segment is relevant and influential in the national and international market, and can be considered a factor of economic and social development.

This paper provides a view of the actors who make up the football value chain, and also supplies a complementary view to the models of chains presented in the theoretical review, enabling the provision of evidence on the axis with greater added value as a new step. The limitation of this research involves the context approached, because as identified throughout the investigation, this context is complex and dynamic. In this way, the linear approach used to construct this chain led to a reduced view of reality and of present relationships.

The model shows the presence of the main actors and the structure for the transformation of raw material into a final product, and is useful to understand the existing relationships and the layers of added value.

The evaluation of the conceptual model of football value chain confirms that this is a professionalized chain, which generates a significant number of direct and indirect jobs.

The authors propose a model of a football value chain which is complementary to the theoretical review developed, exposing a linkage of the players present in this chain and at what stage they are present, and supplies the managerial implications inherent to this.

Football is significant in the global economic context. However, the same significance is not identified in the value added to the chain, as the elements that make it up act in a disintegrated and independent manner with undesired effects. Consequently, it is necessary to structure the undesired effects to seek the basic causes that sustain this problematic situation. Thus, this paper aims to use a CRT to structure the undesired effects and basic causes that limit the positive economic impacts of the south Brazilian football value chain.

A semi-structured questionnaire was applied with questions about the existing constraints. Based on the answers in the interviews, the current reality tree was elaborated, premised on identifying the basic causes that sustain the undesirable effects detected.

Among the main results, it was identified that management problems of the traditional leaders of football clubs and federations are considered the main reason why south of Brazil football cannot fully exploit its economic potential.

It is evidenced that the paper shows the undesired effect that has the most impact on the development of this chain, and it is important to propose improvements to its root causes, aiming at greater efficacy of the resulting actions.

To understand the football industry in its entirety, a supply chain management (SCM) approach is necessary. This includes the study of suppliers, consumers and their collaborations. The purpose of this study was to present a business management model based on supply chain management.

Data were collected through in-depth interviews with 12 academic and executive football experts. After three steps of open, axial and selective coding based on grounded theory with a paradigmatic approach, the data were analysed, and a football supply chain management (FSCM) was developed. The proposed model includes three managerial components: upstream suppliers, the manufacturing firm, and downstream customers.

The football industry sector has three parts: upstream suppliers, manufacturing firm/football clubs and downstream customers. We proposed seven parts for the managerial processes of football supply chain management: event/match management, club management, resource and infrastructure management, customer relationship management, supplier relationship management, cash flow management and knowledge and information flow management. This model can be used for configuration, coordination and redesign of business operations as well as the development of models for evaluation of the football supply chain's performance.

The proposed model of a football supply chain management, with the existing literature and theoretical review, created a synergistic outcome. This synergy is presented in the linkage of the players in this chain and interactions between them. This view can improve the management of industry productivity and improve the products quality.

The relation between sport and sustainability is a topic that has recently raised a lot of interest among both academics and practitioners. However, in the academic literature, very few studies have investigated which solutions are implemented in football, despite its popularity, to reduce the environmental impact of its events. This study contributes to filling this gap by exploring how stadium managers tackle environmental issues for football events.

The authors have analyzed 94 sustainability reports of major sports events and conducted 6 case studies in 6 different major league stadiums around Europe in the framework of research supported by UEFA and three EU National Football Associations.

The heterogeneity of practices and goals at both the governance and operational level denote that stadium managers pursue environmental objectives mainly voluntarily and under local pressures. Efforts toward environmental improvement appear to depend on an economic and efficiency rationale, which translates into the adoption of technologies and operational practices characterized by short-term economic returns (i.e. energy and resources savings). As a result, operational practices outnumber governance-level practices.

The analysis clearly highlights that the fragmentation of operational practices derives from a lack of maturity of governance structures, especially when multiple actors have different – yet mutually influencing – responsibilities on the infrastructures or the planning and staging of football events.

Building on the notion of the holistic approach to environmental sustainability in sport management the research differentiated environmental practices according to the operational and governance dimensions. While operational practices tackle environmental aspects directly associated with football events (e.g. waste, energy consumption, water usage, etc.), governance-level practices relate to the systemic allocation of environmental roles and responsibilities within the management structure underlying football events.

This study aims to identify the current state, the emergent research clusters, the key research topics and the configuration of collaboration in scientific production related to the market value of soccer players.

This article analyzes 52 articles published between 1985 and 2021 and from the Scopus and WoS databases.

The subject is of growing interest both in academic and practical areas. A variable that frequently appears as a determinant of market value is crowd wisdom. The largest cluster related to the co-citation level shows that the main issues about soccer player market value are player performance, team performance, and the determinants of the superstar formation. Spain and Germany stand out as essential countries both in literary production and citation rate. The network of collaborations is still low.

This study is supported by databases being constantly updated, resulting in continuous variation in the number of indexed journals. Consequently, a bibliometric analysis regarding an emergent topic can, in fewer years, be subject to essential variations. Another limitation is that it has analyzed a particular topic using the most influential databases, and the global perspective could be improved with the incorporation of other different databases. Data regarding collaborations could be helpful for investigations or policies that propose to approach the topic supported by specialized groups. This study offers the possibility for future researchers to extend the databases used, the level of analysis, or focus on specific topics or variables affecting the soccer player market value.

This study contributes to knowing the current state of the soccer player market value research. Studies on such topics are relatively limited concerning the literature review.

In this paper it is argued that value chain structure, that is the way that skills and activities are divided between different firms within an industry, often evolves in a locally specific way and this has serious implications for the global expansion of firms. It is argued that for managers to be successful with global expansion they must consciously consider both the division of activities in the value chain of the new market, and the degree to which their own skills and capabilities can readily compliment or interface with those of local partners and suppliers.

Data was collected and case studies developed on firms that have faced challenges related to value chain structure when undertaking foreign market entry. The study followed directives for case‐based research, and was based upon multiple sources of evidence: archival data, industry publications, interviews and direct observation. The study conformed with Yin's recommendations for developing construct validity and reliability. Multiple sources of evidence were used to achieve data triangulation, thereby reinforcing construct validity. As analysis of the companies under analysis evolved, progress was communicated to key executives and managers in the firms under analysis, thereby encouraging the early identification of possible rival explanations and ensuring internal validity. From the academic literature, field visits and the development of case studies, the research was refined during 2007‐2008 in a reiterative process of application, testing and adaptation. Common issues were identified and used to build theory and make the concepts generic enough so they could be utilized by other managers.

Decades of wisdom about foreign market entry tells managers to assess whether their unique skills and capabilities might offer comparative competitive advantage in markets where aspects such as socio‐cultural attributes, regulatory and legal structure, level of economic development and the availability of supporting administrative and physical infrastructure can differ from the home market. They are encouraged to analyze these potential hurdles carefully, and to decide if their company‐specific skills and capabilities outweigh country‐specific challenges in operating abroad. But beyond the firm and country specific elements that are traditionally considered as part of foreign market entry decisions, the structure of the foreign industry's value chain, and the capabilities of the firms operating within that chain, can also play a very significant role in the potential of global expansion. Industry value chains, and the activities and skills of the firms within those chains, can evolve in distinctly different ways, even within industries that produce similar products or services.

The paper takes a cross‐industry view to draw practical recommendations for managers considering foreign market entry from both the manufacturing and service sectors. It is argued that for managers to be successful with global expansion they must consciously consider both the division of activities in the value chain of the new market, and the degree to which their own skills and capabilities can readily compliment or interface with those of local partners and suppliers.

Even the smartest managers can put a great deal of effort into the “traditional” tools of foreign market entry analysis while at the same time remaining blissfully ignorant of the value‐chain‐related problems that they might encounter. This is not because they are negligent, but because they have come to take for granted the manner in which the value chain functions in their home market, and almost no one from the consulting or academic world has challenged them to question these deeply held assumptions as part of typical approaches to market entry analysis. The paper takes a cross‐industry view to draw practical recommendations for managers considering foreign market entry from both the manufacturing and service sectors. It is argued that for managers to be successful with global expansion they must consciously consider both the division of activities in the value chain of the new market, and the degree to which their own skills and capabilities can readily compliment or interface with those of local partners and suppliers.

Much of the extant literature has focused heavily on the recruiting aspects of college sports (Beamon, 2008; Broughton, E., & Neyer, M. (2001). Advising and counseling student athletes. New Directions for Student Services, 93, 47–53). Far less attention has been given to the supply chain of athletic departments from a macro-level perspective. A supply chain is a stream of information or goods from a supplier to an end customer. This study will provide a synthesis of previous literature, which will be integrated into a conceptual framework explaining the college athlete supply chain and its impact on Black males. We will also utilize secondary data to examine the organizational development of college recruiting and the conceptual nature of college athlete suppliers and manufacturers. The chapter will conclude with recommendations on how best to address the issues of the supply chain where revenue in college football has taken precedence over the collegiate experiences of many Black male student-athletes. This knowledge will be essential to all stakeholders within college athletics, particularly administrators, athletes, recruiters, coaches, and parents of athletes.

While some football clubs are recognised as popular brands, little is known about the way they leverage their brand in their merchandise retailing. To address this gap the purpose of this paper is to investigate retail branding strategies used by professional football clubs through brand equity and supply chain management. In particular, it analyses the type of product merchandised, the reasons for selling certain products and the ways through which football clubs merchandise, including their partners in distribution channels.

A qualitative approach was undertaken involving content analysis of 22 Scottish professional football clubs’ websites and annual reports, and semi-structured interviews with seven football clubs retail managers and four supply chain partners. Transcribed data were coded and thematically organised through an inductive process using the qualitative data analysis software NVivo 10.

Three types of merchandise have been identified: basic, fashion and short season. Building brand equity is considered the main motive for retailing merchandise. Some football clubs use intermediaries or outsourcers to respond to sudden consumer demands and to ensure high levels of service, whereas others have an integrated supply chain which allows for greater control.

This paper contributes to the discussion on the role of retailing in football club brand equity. It suggests initiating intermediaries in the distribution channels to build brand equity thus enabling clubs to become more responsive to consumer demand.

This is the first paper to look at retail branding strategies of professional football clubs.

This paper explores the relationship power, appropriateness in relationship management and the commercial outcomes in buyer and suppler exchange by analyzing the recent history of the involvement of BSkyB in particular, and television companies in general, in the English football supply chain network. The paper describes the major players in the chain and where and how value flows commercially between the major protagonists in the network. The paper shows that although the Premiership football clubs have received an enormous increase in revenue over the last ten years this has not been translated into higher (or in some cases any profits). This is because the club's ability to leverage their customers is not capable of being used against their key suppliers – the players. It is the players (or at least those perceived to be the most talented and saleable) who have been appropriating the major share of value in this supply chain network.

The purpose of this study is to offer a “brand equity model” that will help football organizations to manage their appeal.

The proposed model utilizes structural equation modelling analysis to test the hypothesized marketing brand equity (MBE) model. The empirical part of the research stems from a large survey of 1,300 Israeli football fans.

As expected, knowledge about the team, the team’s image and its perceived personality significantly predicted positive attitudes toward the team. This in turn predicted commitment, which predicted recommendation, which predicted intentions. The linear regression to extract the seven parameters weights was highly significant (F = 163.5, p < 0.001) and explained 52 per cent (R² = 0.518) of the depended variable “price premium”.

The new MBE model suggested here provides a relative index of brand equity for football club organizations that enables them to competitively compare the marketing equity of their club to that of their rivals. The MBE model also shows that commitment is a central component in the football club’s brand equity model. The current MBE model is the only model that provides a weight for each of the components. Each respective weight represents the internal contribution of each component to the final brand equity index. These weights indicate where an effort should be made to improve the equity of the brand.

Football teams may also need to focus on the constructs underlying the commitment (Shuv-Ami, 2012) of fans to their football club organization, that is, the team performance and satisfaction stemming from the fans’ experience with their team and the feelings of loyalty and involvement that represent the degree of fan engagement with the team. Although football teams do what they can to improve performance, much can be done in marketing to improve the other constructs and, thus, fan commitment. Improving the experience of fans, both on and off the field, regardless of whether the team is winning or losing, builds fan engagement.

The current research suggests two new brand equity models for football club organizations. One is a comprehensive theoretical model that combines and expands current conceptual brand equity models (Keller, 1993, 2008; Aaker, 1991, 1996; Keller and Lehmann, 2006); the other is an empirical model that makes it practical to measure the marketing strength or the brand equity of football clubs. The new empirical MBE suggested here provides a relative index of brand equity for football club organization that enable them to compare competitively the marketing equity of their club to that of their rivals. The MBE model also shows, for the first time, that commitment is a central component in the football club brand equity model. The current MBE is the only model that provides a weight for each of its component.