Football transfer fee premiums and Europe's big five

Abstract

This article studies the transfer market for international football players. Analyzing a sample of 5,760 player transfers over 14 years, we provide evidence that clubs in English football pay larger transfer fee premiums compared to clubs in the top leagues of France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. While the popular press often mentions the English premiums, we empirically demonstrate both their existence and their causal source. Using annual data, we show that the dramatic increase in English premiums is causally linked to the 2012 television contracts the EPL signed with domestic and international broadcasters. These findings have policy implications for the clubs, players, and governing bodies of European football, as well as indirect consequences for export‐oriented football clubs.

Exploring determinants of international transfers of women soccer players in Portuguese football

“…Finally, the contractual dimension was suggested after reading Feess and Muehlheusser, 23 Terviö, 24 and Depken and Globan. 25 In this case, it is important to discern whether the change of club is contemplated as a transfer (generally associated with a permanent move to the new club) or a loan (temporary change to the new club, with the athlete returning to the original club at the end of the period). Given the advancement of professionalization in the world of women's football, as highlighted by Feess and Muehlheusser, 23 it is also important to identify whether the footballer comes from a professional contract or an amateur athlete relationship.…”

Capital gains from player transfers as a value creation tool: some evidence from European listed football clubs

“…The Authors show that revenue inequality is not substantially affected by the transfer operations. Depken and Globan (2021) collected and analyzed a sample of over five thousand player transfersover a period of 14 yearsand concluded that English clubs pay higher transfer fee premiums in comparison with clubs in other major European leagues; moreover, they identified the signing of TV rights contracts as the trend's causal factor. Finally, capital gains are implicitly considered by research focused on analyzing the contribution of club managers to the performance of football teams, in particular in the case of Buzzacchi et al (2021), who include the increase in players' market value among the variables explaining the role played by managers (indeed, the rise in market value sustains the financial viability of the clubs through the capital gains emerging from player transfer operations).…”

When Pep comes calling, the oil market answers: The effect of football player transfer movements on abnormal fluctuations in oil price futures

“…Recently, Depken and Globan (2021) find that the windfall revenues from television revenues in England, relative to the other big five European leagues, might have provided resources that helped boost the prices paid in transfers to English teams. 14 While we do not have time series data on television revenue for the individual clubs, to examine this issue we collected annual total revenue data for all five football clubs and calculated the change in each club's annual revenues.…”

“…According to the finding ofDepken and Globan (2021), one might think it is interesting to check the difference of the effect between the oil-financed English and non-English clubs regarding the role of television revenue. We perform this analysis and see that the effect of funds needed on abnormal oil spot returns is more pronounced for the English teams.…”