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The purpose of this study is to investigate the Union of European Football Associations’s Financial Fair Play (FFP) Regulations in the context of the European football industry. This study seeks to explore whether these regulations are perceived by member organisations as contributing to the creation of a “poverty trap”. To do so, this study turns towards what are traditionally perceived as smaller clubs operating in smaller member associations and, in doing so, explores whether the regulations limiting benefactor payments are suitable for smaller leagues.

In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with key individuals involved in the management of Scottish football clubs. The Scottish context was chosen because of the disparity in revenues amongst competing teams and the limited broadcasting revenues achieved in comparison to some other European member associations.

FFP Regulations are perceived to be an effective tool for monitoring clubs and ensuring financial stability. However, the findings suggest that participants believe that these regulations consolidate the financial position of larger teams who rely on broadcasting and extant brand power for revenue generation. Further, smaller leagues demonstrate a lesser reliance on benefactor payments, and therefore, the restriction on benefactor payments inherent within FFP Regulations is posited by participants as holding little consequence and/or relevance within the Scottish football context.

Most prior studies on FFP Regulations have focused on generating quantitative insight into the application of FFP Regulations in large, resource-rich European football leagues. Through a qualitative approach, this study provides nascent exploratory insight into FFP Regulations from the perspective of smaller leagues.

This study aims to examine the “external effect” of a migrated star player on their domestic sport industries. By exploring the new aspect of star power, this study provides important insight and critical implication to many relevant stakeholders in the professional sports league. Particularly, this is critical under the recent circumstance where the globalization of sports products becomes the central strategic issue of the world-class leagues.

In this paper, the external effect of star players migrated from three Asian leagues (Japan, Korea and Taiwan) to Major League Baseball in the USA, the world-class baseball league, on their domestic league attendance demand was empirically investigated. For the analysis, comprehensive historical data from various reliable sources from each league were collected.

The findings of the paper strongly support the external effect of migrated stars significantly existing in all the three leagues. The effect is consistent across various measurements of migrated star players. More interestingly, the effect was found to be mixed across different leagues; for example, migrated star players increases in domestic league attendance in Japan, while it decreases in Korea and Taiwan. This indicates that the external effect of migrated star players depends on the characteristics of the domestic leagues. In addition, it was found that the external effect was substantial enough to compare to the effect of major demand drivers such as team winning, competitive balance and star power. For managerial implications, this study also provides revenue projections induced by the impact of migrated star players.

This study opens a new chapter related to star power topic and immediately calls for future studies regarding this external effect, particularly, theoretical and behavioral approaches.

Academics have studied the finances of football clubs, but not the financial situation of professional football players. To fill this gap in literature, the purpose of this paper is to analyse the financial situation of individual players, the causes of financial problems and the probability of encountering financial difficulties.

A survey has been conducted of 102 players of five clubs in the Belgian first division. Based on this unique data set, a multivariate nominal logistic regression model allows the causes of financial difficulties to be identified. A derived classification model is estimated in order to predict the probability of professional players encountering financial problems.

About one out of four professional players is confronted with occasional financial problems. Next to the use and investment of income; personal, family and career status factors have a peculiar impact on the individual financial situation of professional sports players.

The results allow better identification of professional players likely to incur financial problems and better assisting them avoid problems.

Given the gap in the sports management literature, the findings from the econometric approach provide both researchers and practitioners with new insights into financial management issues of athletes. The findings may help athletes, their managers and club managers in their decision making. Future research can further build on these findings.

For intelligent robots in a multi‐agent system communication is essential for cooperative behavior. Here we describe the explicit communication between individual robots acting as team members of a RoboCup team playing soccer. The robots are based on the EyeBot platform. An overview of communication systems being published and a discussion of their advantages and drawbacks is followed by an introduction into multi‐agent systems and the problems we faced applying them to the task of playing soccer. Then we describe the wireless communication network in detail including the EyeBot platform, message structures, self‐configuration and error recovery. The communication allows transmission of messages between individuals, broadcasts and communication with a remote computer workstation. The communication system is a layer beneath the multi‐robot console, which is the user interface, and above the EyeBot hardware.

The introduction of professionalism in 1995 posed serious challenges for Rugby Union in Ireland, Scotland and Wales given their limited fan bases and broadcast markets. It led to the creation of a new league, the Pro14, with teams from all three countries. The paper asks whether the Pro14 has been a success and whether it might offer lessons for other sports. It thus seeks to extend the knowledge base on professional team sports and derive lessons for management of professional sports leagues in small countries.

The authors analyse Pro14 performance using a range of metrics, including attendances, competitive balance and team performances, in European competitions. The authors also analyse the limited financial data available for Pro14 teams.

Pro14 teams have competed successfully in European competition, offering support for claims that mergers of smaller country leagues could improve competitive balance in European soccer. The Pro14 has increased attendances through specific measures and increased broadcast income through geographic expansion. Many Pro14 teams have struggled financially. Several English and French rugby clubs have also experienced financial problems, suggesting that European rugby may need to introduce financial fair play rules (FFPs) similar to soccer.

The paper has implications for the Pro14 and its member clubs, particularly with reference to competition design. It may also have lessons for European football where some have suggested that mergers of smaller country leagues could improve competitive balance in European competitions.

The paper contributes to the academic discussion on professional team sports, particularly Rugby Union. The paper has implications for Pro14 clubs and league organisers, particularly with reference to competition design. It may also have lessons for European soccer where some have suggested that mergers of smaller country leagues could reduce the dominance of larger country leagues.

Attendance at matches in the smaller European football leagues is challenged by the increased number of live broadcast matches, particularly covering the biggest leagues. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the effects of live broadcasting, match scheduling and other factors on stadium attendance in the top division of Norwegian football.

The analysis is based on a fixed effects regression model on attendance at match levels covering the period 2005 to 2011.

The main results show two different effects. While live broadcast domestic matches on “free TV” is positively correlated to stadium attendance, the increased number of “imported” matches from the big-five leagues is a substitute. Moreover, matches played on weekdays have a lower level of attendance than weekend matches.

The increased number of imported live broadcast football matches from the biggest European leagues influences and widens the financial gap between the biggest and the smaller football leagues. One possible solution for reducing the substitution effect from these matches is a more efficient match schedule in the Norwegian top division in football.

Norway has a small population with a high interest for football. This paper measures effects on attendance in the Norwegian top division in football matches with regards to the increased number of live broadcast matches both from the domestic league and from the big five football leagues.

The paper analyzes the effects of financial fair play (FFP) in the competitive balance of European football industry throughout a long-term perspective.

The authors analyze the evolution of the competitive balance in the European football industry through a time-series analysis from season 1992/93 to 2018/19.

Results indicate an industry by nature dominated by a few clubs showing a general stationary behavior. FFP has had very little impact in local competitions. Just in some leagues, such as the Spanish, German, and French leagues, we can observe an increase in the imbalance in some indicators, but these results are not very robust. The improvement on the financial situation happens especially in a small group of firms that coincide with the big leagues with a strong European market orientation and strict local financial control standards.

Although the study covered 17 European Leagues, there are several leagues not accounted for and thus results should be generalized with caution.

The authors observe heterogeneity of the results of FFP in the competitive balance, associated to how the standard has been implemented in each market. This opens opportunities to study and deepen the local codes and their influence, especially in the recommendations of future financial control standards.

The authors’ main contribution to the literature is to examine the impact of the FFP rules in the competitive balance utilizing a very broad study of 17 European markets with a rich and unusual overview and long-term perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to address the problem of designing league regulatory mechanisms given the multi-dimensionality of competitive balance and the proliferation of empirical measures.

A three-stage approach is adopted. Firstly, a taxonomy of empirical measures of competitive balance is proposed, identifying two fundamental dimensions – win dispersion and performance persistence. Secondly, a simple two-team model of league competitive balance is used to explore the dispersion–persistence relationship. Third, correlation and regression analysis of seven empirical measures of competitive balance for the 18 best-attended top-tier domestic football leagues in Europe over the 10 seasons, 2008–2017, are used to (1) validate the proposed categorisation of empirical measures into two dimensions; and (2) investigate the nature of the dispersion–persistence relationship across leagues.

The simple model of league competitive balance implies a strong positive dispersion–persistence relationship when persistence effects increase for big-market teams relative to those for the small-market teams. However, the empirical evidence indicates that while leagues such as the Spanish La Liga exhibit a strong positive dispersion–persistence relationship, other leagues show little or no relationship, and some leagues, particularly, the English Premier League and top-tier divisions in Belgium and Netherlands, have a strong negative dispersion–persistence relationship. The key policy implication for leagues is the importance of understanding the direction and impact of dispersion and persistence effects on the demand for league products.

The variability in the strength and direction of the dispersion–persistence relationship across leagues is an important result that undermines the “one-size-fits-all” approach to designing league regulatory mechanisms.

A study of companies in three different industries shows that growing internationalization of business brings about major changes in the positioning of competitors and the appropriate competitive strategies. Only after going through a financial crisis did the companies studied emerge from national to international status.