Exploring soccer transfers in Spanish League–The hidden role of strategic differences among teams

Abstract

Transfers in the football world have become a hot topic in academic studies in recent years. Spanish league (La Liga) is one of the men’s professional football leagues that have driven some of the most notorious transfers. In this way, we test determinants for the transfer relationships of football players in the Spanish League in the most expensive seasons with records (2018/2019 and 2019/2020 seasons). Furthermore, we identify determinants for the values of the observed transfers. The empirical analysis shows relevant findings. We recognize two implications. First, Spanish soccer transfers are not random and this evidence reflects the environment of imperfect competition characterizing La Liga. Second, the nonrandomness of the transfer process can be associated with an increasing inequality among teams and with a threat to the competitive balance in professional sports.