PERFORMANCE OF CZECH FOOTBALL CLUBS: MALMQUIST INDEX APPROACH

Sport has become an important part of our lives in the modern times and sporting sites contribute significantly to the image and texture of modern cities. Regarding the popularity of sport, and football in particular, it has become an important modern place where specific types of economic and social interaction take place. The aim of this article is to propose a method for evaluating the performance of football clubs based on DEA and Malmquist index. Professional Czech football clubs playing in the Czech football competition Fortuna:Liga were selected for empirical analysis. To analyze the relative efficiency of football clubs, BCC and CCR models were employed. The study was conducted on a sample of 20 clubs through 2 inputs and 1 output collected during the 2015/16 – 2019/20 seasons. For some clubs the values of the Malmquist index were calculated. With help of MI it was possible to quantify the total productivity change factor and to decompose it to technological change and technical efficiency change. The results show that Czech football clubs achieved a relatively high level of efficiency in the period monitored and that traditional clubs achieved the highest efficiency score. These results could help club managers improve the performance of their teams.

Patterns of Injury in the Spanish Football League Players

Background: The study of football injuries is a subject that concerns the scientific community. The problem of most of the available research is that it is mainly descriptive. The objective of this study is to discover and analyse the patterns of injury in the Spanish Football League (2016–2017 season). Methods: The sample data consisted of 136 given injuries identified by the official physicians of the football clubs. The analysis was performed by using traditional statistic tests, T-pattern detection and polar coordinate analysis. Results: The analysis revealed several patterns of injury: (a) The defender suffered a rupture of the hamstring muscles after a sprint, (b) knee sprains happened due to a received tackle, (c) fibrillar adductor rupture appeared mostly among defenders and (d) fibrillar ruptures took place mostly throughout the first part. Conclusions: There is a marked shift in the tendency regarding the player who gets more injured, from the midfielder to the defender. The most common injury was fibrillar rupture. The most common scenario in which this injury occurred was that in which the player injured himself after a sprint (24%). A week without competing seems to be insufficient as a prevention mechanism for injuries.

Econometric Approach to Assessing the Transfer Fees and Values of Professional Football Players

Billions of euros are invested every year by professional football clubs for the recruitment of players. How do market actors decide prices? This paper presents an econometric model unveiling the key factors coming into play in determining fees on the transfer market for professional football (soccer) players. The statistical technique used to build the model is multiple linear regression (MLR), with fees paid by clubs as an independent variable. The sample comprises over 2000 transactions of players transferred for money from clubs in the five major European leagues during the period stretching from July 2012 to November 2021. This paper notably highlights the importance of taking into consideration the remaining duration of contracts binding players with the club to which they belong, a factor often neglected in the existing literature. It also shows that a statistical model can explain over 80% of the differences in the transfer fees paid for players. This paper reveals various applications of the approach developed for the football industry to both assess and predict football players’ transfer fees and values: transfer negotiations, club sales or purchases, bank credit, fund raising, financial planning and communication, legal disputes, etc.

Wage Dispersion and Team Performance: The Moderation Role of Club Size

Previous research on professional football offer conflicting results regarding the impact of wage dispersion on team performance. However, the existing intra-league heterogeneity among clubs is overlooked and could be the reason for the diverging outcomes. The aim of this paper is to reanalyze this relationship having the clubs’ size as moderator. Payroll – which captures the financial strength – is used as proxy of club size. Ordinary Least Squares regressions with season and league fixed effects are employed. Dispersion is measured by three indexes for robustness check. The outputs confirm the quadratic relationship between wage dispersion and performance, but adding that identical levels of dispersion have different impact on football clubs according to their financial strength.

PROFILE OF THE ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE IN YOUTH CLUB FOOTBALL (THE PRESENT SITUATION IN BLAGOEVGRAD REGION)

The end of the crisis in Bulgarian football is discussed through the perspective of solving the problems in youth football. Although organizational culture is essential for effectiveness within organizations, few studies are related to the organizational culture in (youth) football clubs in Bulgaria. The article aims at studying the organizational culture in three clubs from the Youth-17 League in the South-West Bulgaria Zone 1 and Zone 2. 60 players and 3 coaches participated in a survey conducted through OCAI (Cameron and Quinn). The weight of certain factors considered important for achievement in clubs was measured through dispersion analysis. The hierarchy and clan types are predominant in the club’s profiles. According to the analysis, the present state is characterized by fewer distractions than the desired state. ANOVA shows that the team success factor has the strongest influence regarding the differentiation of the clan (present state) and market (desired state) types of cultures. The competing experience factor has a lesser effect and differentiates the market and the adhocracy type of cultures (the desired state). The prospect factor differentiates between the clan and market type in the desired state. Both groups surveyed have similar preferences for the types of organizational culture in the teams, with the “strength” of the preference criteria having higher value with the coaches. The typical team sport profile of organizational culture is observed. Coaches can influence the sports training activities and manage the organizational culture in the clubs through the factors mentioned above when players are still young. The study is not representative of the South-West League and Bulgaria as a whole. Organizational culture significantly influences competing efficiency and good youth football players’ making.

Influence of stakeholders' perception on value creation and measurement: the case of football clubs

PurposeThe presented study aims to identify and classify the value factors that influence the value of football clubs from the stakeholder perspective, while also discussing how these factors can affect the choice of valuation methods. The paper considers how value should be measured from the perspective of stakeholders. Research focuses on clubs embedded deeply in a wide interrelated network of stakeholders.Design/methodology/approachA mixed research approach was established in order to obtain a more holistic understanding of value creation, value factors and measurement. The research builds on observational study with a mix of retrospective longitudinal study of Polish men's football clubs and interviews with stakeholders, which are then triangulated as part of a critical discussion on valuation methods.FindingsThe results show the most significant value factors determined by the stakeholders. The study discusses which performance and value measures should be used to measure value for the stakeholders of football clubs. Intellectual capital methods and asset-based methods should definitely be relied on as part of measuring the performance of football clubs within the stakeholders' network. All findings suggest the use of the multivariate valuation method in accordance with previous research.Originality/valueThe classified key value factors enable the management of football clubs to properly manage stakeholder relationships and address various stakeholders' concerns in a sustainable way. The paper proposes a research process, which may also be implemented in other studies in the non-profit sector and contributes to the literature in the fields of sports management.

Corporate Social Responsibility and Football Clubs: The Value of Environmental Sustainability as a Basis for the Rebranding of Real Betis Balompié in Spain

On October 2020, Real Betis Balompié, a football club located in Seville (Andalucia), presented the Forever Green programme, a global programme of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) that, through the club’s foundation, enables the entity to position itself in areas of sustainable development and environment at a global level. This project was preceded by a sponsorship initiative with the Green Earth project, as well as having been the first football club to sign the United Nations’ Climate Change Now initiative. This article aims to explain the rebranding process of a sports brand based on values linked to sustainability and to assess the impact this rebranding process has had on the fans’ perception of the brand. The methodology used was a combination of in-depth interviews with the executives charged with leading the rebranding process and a convenience survey given to 100 fans to assess the impact of the initiative. The results show that both the entity and the fans agree on a holistic vision of what the CSR is, altruistic in nature, and that its initiatives should be applicable across the entire organisation. However, although the club’s link with values of the environment and sustainability is highly valued by the fans, they still do not feel directly called upon to take part in actions that the club organises.

Sports Level and the Personality of American Football Players in Poland

Research on personality in sport is very popular as it allows prediction of the behavior of players in the starting situation. Hence, verifications of players due to their sports level may turn out to be crucial. Due to the dynamic development of American football in Poland, we undertook research to verify the relationship between the sports level and the personality of these players. The Big Five personality study that we carried out involved players aged from 20 to 29—the representatives of American football clubs in Poland (N = 140) from three league games levels: LFA 1 (n = 75), LFA 2 (n = 40), and LFA 9 (n = 25). The NEO-FFI personality questionnaire was used as a research tool. The players from the top-level games were characterized by their openness to experience, the level of which decreases along with the decrease in the players’ sports levels. The differences in openness to experience were revealed, first of all, in divergent thinking and creativity. It was ascertained that openness to experience is a characteristic personality trait for American football players in Poland. Therefore, systematic conduct of personality tests among American football players in Poland, in the process of selecting candidates for the highest levels of football competition, would be recommended. This might significantly affect the development of the sports level of this discipline in Poland. The obtained results of research on personality may, moreover, prove to be useful in selecting players and improving the predictions of important sports behaviors in American football in Poland.

Analisis Dislikes to Viewers Ratio YouTube pada 5 Klub Sepakbola Terkaya di Dunia

YouTube is a social media application that allows users to view, send and share videos. Based on data compiled by We Are Social, it has been recorded that 88% of Indonesians have used the social media Youtube. This means that out of 150 million social media users in Indonesia, around 132 million people already use YouTube. The large number of active YouTube users around the world can certainly provide an opportunity for famous football clubs to make the YouTube platform a social media marketing platform. The 5 richest football clubs in the world that use YouTube as a marketing platform are: Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Manchester United and Liverpool. The purpose of this study is to calculate the credibility of the YouTube channel's performance of the 5 Richest Football Clubs in the World. The method used for this research is quantitative exploratory method. The results of this study indicate that the Bayern Munich football club is ranked first and has good channel performance credibility.

(Not) being granted the right to belong—Amateur football clubs in Germany

Empirical studies show that first- and second-generation immigrants are less likely to be members of sports clubs than their non-immigrant peers. Common explanations are cultural differences and socioeconomic disadvantages. However, lower participation rates in amateur sport could be at least partly due to ethnic discrimination. Are minority ethnic groups granted the same right to belong as their non-immigrant peers? To answer this question, this paper uses publicly available data from a field experiment in which mock applications were sent out to over 1,600 football clubs in Germany. Having a foreign-sounding name significantly reduces the likelihood of being invited to participate. The paper concludes that amateur football clubs are not as permeable as they are often perceived to be. It claims that traditional explanations for lower participation rates of immigrants need to be revisited.