How the UEFA Financial Fair Play regulations affect football clubs’ priorities and leagues’ competitive balance?

García-del-Barrio, Pedro; Rossi, Giambattista

Use this link to cite:

http://hdl.handle.net/2183/26072

How the UEFA Financial Fair Play regulations affect football clubs’ priorities and leagues’ competitive balance?

Files

EJGE_2020_9_2_1.pdf (1.4 MB)

Identifiers

URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2183/26072

Publication date

2020

Authors

García-del-Barrio, Pedro

Rossi, Giambattista

Bibliographic citation

Garcia-del-Barrio, P., & Rossi, G. (2020). How the UEFA Financial Fair Play regulations affect football clubs’ priorities and leagues’ competitive balance?. European Journal of Government and Economics, 9(2), 119-142. https://doi.org/10.17979/ejge.2020.9.2.5842

Abstract

[Abstract] Institutional and legal reforms applied in the context of sports competitions often provoke structural changes that can be empirically investigated. Using a data set of 560 observations (20 teams per season, from 2009/10 to 2015/16, of teams playing in the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A and Ligue 1), this paper examines how the UEFA Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations may have altered the football clubs’ decisions concerning their sport and financial priorities. Moreover, based on a simple theoretical description, the paper shows that the increasing financial stability promoted by the FFP rules might actually imply – as an undesired side effect – a declined competitive balance affecting the European football leagues. Finally, the paper discusses some policy issues and recommendations.