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This study aims to contribute to the analysis of the impact of financial control or “financial fair play” (FFP) regulations on the financial performance of the Spanish professional football league (LaLiga) by examining the moderating role of club size. The authors argue that introducing FFP positively impacted the financial performance of small clubs but increased the economic gap between large and small clubs.

A 12-year dataset covering 22 football clubs is used to test the hypotheses. Panel regression models are estimated for eight measures of financial performance indicators, comprising three financial dimensions: profitability, liquidity and solvency. The Gini index is applied to clubs' economic and sports variables to determine the degree of economic imbalance between the largest and smallest clubs.

The results show that FFP significantly and positively impacted the profitability of small clubs and the solvency of medium-sized clubs but has not impacted the largest clubs' financial performance. After these regulations, economic inequality in Spanish LaLiga increased.

The authors find evidence that club size moderates the effect of FFP on financial performance. The moderating role of club size may explain the mixed results found in previous research. The authors’ findings contribute to improving the literature on the impact of FFP on the financial performance of European football clubs.

This study aims to explore how responsible corporate behaviour, specifically self-imposed financial regulatory control, might subsequently be reflected in the financial performance of companies subject to such regulation.

In this study, the authors aim to explore how financial compliance in the form of the Economic Control Regulation (ECR) has impacted on the financial performance of professional football clubs in Spain. To this purpose, the authors adopted a quasi-experimental before and after study design. This type of design assesses the object of study before and after a specific event in order to determine whether this event has had any effects on the object. In this case, the event was the coming into effect of the ECR in the fiscal year of 2012, and the object hypothetically affected was the clubs’ economic performance.

The authors can confirm that in general terms and for the whole set of clubs analysed, the ECR has had a strong and positive effect on financial performance.

In this study, the authors wish to establish a link between the idea of “compliance” and that of “responsible corporate management practice”. It is not just a matter of compliance with the law. The fact of complying with certain laws could, in general terms, or from the point of view of common sense, be qualified as “responsible behaviour”. However, under the contemporary concept of corporate responsibility, compliance with the law is a behaviour that must be taken for granted. Responsibility, therefore, would entail going beyond such expected behaviour to one that exceeds the environment's expectation of the corporate actor.

What extent improvements in financial performance have also boosted social performance. Confirming such a positive effect endorses the argument that ethical improvements in corporate culture have a general effect on business sustainability in its different aspects: economic, social, environmental and in governance.

The authors may foresee that the culture of compliance will spread from the finance departments to other management areas. Its connection with ethical business practice is directly linked to the more complex concept of the “citizen company”. There are suggest interesting bases on which professional football clubs might move from a traditional profit-oriented company model towards a more contemporary one oriented towards relationships of integrity with the sport's environment. This study shows that the ECR has been a starting point for the development of Spanish professional football clubs towards this type of “citizen company”.

It was a single-sector study whose principal value lies in the verification of whether responsible economic management (the main consequence of applying the ECR) had any effects on company profits, financial results and other important indicators. In addition to fostering responsibility, this new management model involves a special innovation, as it is based on self-regulation (i.e. on regulations not imposed by national or supranational states), designed and implemented to ensure the sector's viability.

The purpose of this article is to offer a conceptual assessment of a contemporary consumer boycott of a global sports brand. A critical commentary is offered of the “Boycott PUMA” campaign with an examination of the positions and motivations of the different parties involved, specifically PUMA, the “Boycott PUMA” campaign, the Israeli Football Association and UEFA/FIFA.

This article is a position and conceptual paper, designed to generate a discussion on what is an emotive consumer boycott campaign. A distinction is made between political boycotts and consumer boycotts, whether it is possible to separate sport from politics, and if PUMA's claimed position of neutrality in this conflict can be achieved.

The focus here is on PUMA's corporate social responsibility statement in which they claim that sport and politics do not mix, with their response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 undermining this claim. PUMA's commitment to social justice is being used by the “Boycott PUMA” activists to expose the disconnect between PUMA's stated vision and its actions.

PUMA's brand has been built on creating a particular type of brand image, with a positive image and brand awareness essential for this sports apparel company. If the company finds itself in a media spotlight their brand equity can become damaged.

With very little research available on the Israel/Palestine from a sport sponsorship and marketing perspective, this article offers an original and much needed assessment of a potentially significant campaign.

This paper explains the concept of support as an economic driver of football. It begins with a theoretical approach to the concept of support and a review of the literature relating to support, fan typology and factors that determine attendance at stadia. Next, factors that influence support are explained and a schema for a model of support is proposed. Finally, an analysis is carried out of the influence of attendance on revenues in Spanish professional football clubs.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of the #MeToo movement in the work environment of professional football organizations in Spain. It also explores the current situation of the professional career of women working in this industry to know if the opportunities are equal for men and women to reach management or executive positions.

From a gender approach and considering gender as a social structure (Risman, 2004), the authors are going to analyse men and women’s professional careers in football organizations from a three-dimensional gender perspective (individual, interactional and institutional). The objective is twofold: to know the effect of the #MeToo movement in these organizations; and also to know the opinion of both men and women of these organizations concerning gender influence for women’s career progression. The methodology implemented in this investigation is qualitative; 24 in-depth interviews (12 men and 12 women) have been carried out with professionals from different executive positions in both football clubs and organizations.

The gender approach improves current knowledge about women’s roles in the football industry. The exploratory analysis of the results shows that although the #MeToo phenomenon is relatively known it has had an indirect impact in Spanish football, where its consequences have not been as visible as in other sectors.

The paper provides an exploratory approach by analysing the effects of the #MeToo movement in the football sector, an area where almost no previous research has been done. Also, it presents the main factors that influence women’s professional careers in this sector and the significance of the recent #MeToo phenomenon in the football industry.

The purpose of this paper is to obtain evidence about the scope of the determinants of the willingness to pay (WTP) of the residents in a Spanish city (A Coruña) for keeping a professional football team (Deportivo) competing at the highest level. Apart from the individual socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents and their attitudes as football fans, the authors try to know the influence on the WTP of factors such as the general economic conditions and the plausibility of the team disappearance.

The value of the intangible benefits associated with the team existence is derived from the application of the contingent valuation method (CVM), using two surveys conducted in 2003 and 2012, respectively, with the aim of obtaining information concerning citizens’ behaviour and attitudes towards a professional football team.

The consumption of public goods generated by the local football team is relatively inelastic to the sport success and general economic situation, but the value assigned by residents to those goods depends on these factors. Of the two components of the WTP, the non-use value is especially sensitive to changes both in the Spanish economic conditions and in the quality of the public goods generated by the football team.

This is the first study that applies the CVM to a football team controlling for both the general economic conditions and the team sport success and, as such, it provides interesting insights into the nature and scope of the determinants of individuals’ WTP in a CVM setting.

This paper aims to analyse the relationship between ownership structure and financial performance in the five major European football leagues from 2007-2008 to 2012-2013 and examine the impact of the financial fair play (FFP) regulation.

The sample used comprises 94 teams that participated in the major European competitions: German Bundesliga, Ligue 1 of France, Spanish Liga, English Premier League and the Italian Serie A. The estimation technique used is panel-corrected standard errors.

The results confirm an inverted U-shaped curve relationship between ownership structure and financial performance as a consequence of both monitoring and expropriation effects. Moreover, the results show that after FFP regulation, the monitoring effect disappears and only the expropriation effect remains.

The lack of transparency of the information provided by some teams has limited the sample size.

One of the main issues that the various regulating bodies of the industry should address is the introduction of a code of good practice, not only for aspects related to the transparency of financial information but also to require greater transparency in the information concerning corporate governance.

Regulating bodies could also consider other additional control instruments based on corporate governance, such as for example, corporate governance practices, corporate governance codes, greater transparency, control of the boards of directors, etc.

This study tries to provide direct evidence of the impact of large majority investors in the clubs and FFP regulation on the financial performance of football clubs.

The purpose of this paper is to argue for the necessity of regulating European club football financially, in order to create a fair structure of sporting competition.

By deploying the soft budget constraint approach – originally developed by Hungarian Economist János Kornai in order to understand (public) business behavior in socialist and post‐socialist economies – and combining it with empirical analysis, the paper develops an understanding of why the majority of European top league clubs are loss‐makers and why regulation is needed. The paper rests on its application of the soft budget constraint approach to build its argument and uses existing empirical research in order to support it within the field of European professional football.

The paper finds substantial evidence of soft budget constraints in professional football clubs, and argues that softness punishes the few financially well‐managed clubs in sporting terms for balancing their books.

From a theoretical point of view, the new perspective of soft budget constraints takes political, cultural and emotional aspects into account in order to understand economic behavior among professional team sports clubs. This gives promising new insights into the discipline of sports economics and sports management.

The paper's findings demand action to be taken to secure financial fair play in order to deal with issues of equal sporting competition. It argues that this must be done through a central regulation scheme covering all European leagues, thus endorsing the new UEFA financial fair play program. At the same time, however, the paper recognizes the problems in implementing the program efficiently.

The originality and value of the paper is its application of a new theoretical approach that clarifies the problems of European professional football and the reasons why regulatory solutions are necessary to harden the budget constraints.

COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted the lives of people and businesses around the world in different ways. France, Spain, Italy and the UK are among the worst affected countries by this pandemic. The purpose of this paper is to identify and compare different corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities taken by the clubs and player of the major football leagues of these four countries to develop a more comprehensive model of intervention.

This paper has analyzed the initiatives taken by these football clubs and players to address financial vulnerabilities, mental health problems and domestic violence among the stakeholders and compared them with the existing CSR and humanitarian models. A case study approach has been used to collect and analyze data related to the CSR activities taken by the players and club management. Official websites of the clubs, newspaper and journal articles were among the major sources used to collect data for the paper.

Football clubs and players of the four major leagues have raised funds through different campaigns and delivered foods and essential medical supplies to the communities and hospitals to address financial vulnerabilities, mental health issues and domestic violence within their communities during the COVID-19 pandemic. They have provided guidance to their followers using social and television media to improve their physical and mental health during the pandemic. Online competitions, quizzes or virtual hangouts have also been used by the players to engage the stakeholders on a frequent basis. Football clubs have also initiated campaigns to raise awareness within the community on available medical services for the victims of domestic violence and also provided them with shelter, food, medical, legal and online counseling services.

Football clubs and players of the major leagues were always at the forefront to help the communities and hospitals to address issues related to mental health problems, financial vulnerabilities and domestic violence during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings of this paper could help and guide other entities in designing a more comprehensive model of CSR interventions during pandemics or crisis situations to address financial vulnerabilities, mental health problems and domestic violence within their communities.