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MACKENZIE PRESBYTERIAN UNIVERSITYSocial and Applied Sciences Center

Economics Course

EUROPEAN SOCCER:INVESTMENTS, SPORT RESULTS AND PROFITS

Igor Marcondes da Cruz

São Paulo2010

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ABSTRACT

The objective is to analyze the relationship between soccer and money. Initially, there is a brief historical analysis of events that showed close relationship between soccer and the economy. Woven this basis, we seek evidence corroborating the theory that victories generate money and this generates new victories. During the research, the issue is addressed in various ways, and they all lead to findings that strengthen this assumption. It is noted that, as a rule, richer regions have richer clubs, richer clubs achieve more important results, which makes them add more value to their players and generate more revenue.

Keywords: Soccer; Economics; Money.

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SUMMARY

INTRODUCTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

1) SOCCER: “TRANSLATION OF CONTEMPORARY HISTORY” . . . . . . . . . . . 7

1.1) The diffusion of the sport. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

1.2) Fascism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

1.3) The Cold War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8

1.4) Soccer market and globalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

2) TITLES AND WEALTH: EMPIRICAL APPROACH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

2.1) Prosperity: Countries X Clubs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

2.2) Prosperity: Cities/ States X Clubs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

2.2.1) Brazil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

2.2.2) Argentina . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

2.2.3) Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

2.3) UEFA Champions League . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

2.3.1) Origins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

2.3.2) League structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

2.3.3) Winners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

2.3.4) Money . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

3) ACHIEVEMENTS AND PROFITABILITY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

3.1) Overview of transfers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

3.2) Extraction of players' value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

3.3) Clubs' wealth and their achievements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

3.4) Clubs' campaigns and their revenues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28

3.5) Clubs' campaigns and their payrolls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34

REFERENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

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List of Tables and Figures

Tables

Table 1 – Most valuable soccer clubs in the World (2009) - US$ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Table 2 – Countries with highest GDP – Purchasing Power Parity (2009) - US$ . . . . . . . 12

Table 3 – Sum of the values of the clubs – divided by country (from Table 1) . . . . . . . . . 12

Table 4 – European countries with highest GDP (from Table 2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Table 5 – UEFA Champions League trophies and times runners-up (1955-6/2009-10) . . 13

Table 6 – Brazilian states' GDP (2007) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14

Table 7 – National titles per state (Brazil) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Table 8 – Argentinian provinces' GDP (2008) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Table 9 – National titles per province (Argentina) – 1931 to 2010 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Table 10 – Cities with highest GDP in the main european countries (2005) – US$ bi . . . 16

Table 11 – European cities with most national leagues titles (until Season 2009-10) . . . . 16

Table 12 – UEFA Champions League' Champions and Runners-up (Seasons: 1955-56 until 2009-2010) – Clubs and their countries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Table 13 – Ficticious possibilities concerning clubs earnings according to each performance in the group stage of 2009/2010 UEFA Champions League (UEFA gave 800 thousand euros for each victory and 400 thousand for each tie) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Table 14 – Ficticious possibilities concerning clubs earnings according to each phase achieves by the teams on 2009/2010 UEFA Champions League . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Table 15 – Average values of clubs' players purchases and sales – division by groups of different economic powers (pounds) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Table 16 – Average balance of groups transfers with each other – division by groups of different economic powers (pounds) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Table 17 – Average value of purchases and sales of the same player by a Key-team – division by groups of different economic powers (pounds) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Table 18 – Balance of G10 and G20's participation in UEFA Champions League (Seasons 2003/2004 until 2009/2010) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

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Table 19 – Play-offs achieved stages by Forbes' G10 and G20 teams and other clubs in UEFA Champions League - Seasons 2003/2004 until 2009/2010 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Table 20 – Final 2005/2006 English League standings and the clubs' payrolls (pounds) . 32

Table 21 – Final 2007/2008 Italian League standings and the clubs' payrolls (millions of Euros). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33

Table 22 – Final 2008/2009 Italian League standings and the clubs' payrolls (millions of Euros). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33

Figures

Figure 1 – Main players transfers (1893-2009) – pounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10

Figure 2 – Television rights (1978-2006) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Figure 3 – Countries where played the 2006 World Cup players (%) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Figure 4 – Average transfers values between groups G10, G20-G10 and (G20) . . . . . . . . 23

Figure 5 – Flows of cash and players between the groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Figure 6 – Average time that players stay in the clubs (per group) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Figure 7 – Players' annual depreciation rate (per group) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Figure 8 – Average value of players' sales (per group) – “A” Leagues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Figure 9 – Average value of players' sales (per group) – Lower Leagues . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Figure 10 – Average value of players' sales (per group) – “A” Leagues agregated . . . . . . 31

Figure 11 – Average value of players' sales (per group) – Lower Leagues agregated . . . . 31

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INTRODUCTION

The topic to be discussed in this work is soccer, specifically as a business. More and more clubs have been acquiring business features, which motivates the Economic Science to study the behavior of soccer in this focus. It circulates billions of dollars a year, and also stirs the emotions of many people in the world, affects and is affected by the society that surrounds it. This is already sufficient motivation to study in depth its phenomenons, trends and historical evolution. The theme has risen through the daily observation, which has indicated that the richest teams seem to win more championships, and after the victories there are usually gains with the sale of some of the players who have excelled in the won competitions. To relate results with money is the spirit of capitalism and certainly fits the economic theory.

The main objective is to establish the relationship between money and results, that is, to win means to earn money, which leads to further victories. The virtuous circle is clear, and of course the opposite is also possible (losses restrict the revenue, which difficults future victories). The theme lacks works dedicated to him, especially connecting with the financial issue. Brazil is far behind in terms of soccer literature in relation to Europe, which should not happen, since it is a major center for training and forming players in the world and is the country that has won most World Cups. This sector, after a long time of stagnation, has grown in recent years with authors as Hilário Franco Junior and Paulo Vinicius Coelho, the first book is more general, the second more devoted to the exodus of players to Europe.

The spacial focus of this work is Europe, so although in some passages the brazilian and argentinian soccer are addressed, the main field of study is the european soccer. This choice was made because the top-level soccer is practiced there, where the money is and therefore where the most top players are in the world. The argentinian and brazilian soccer are also a rich source of research, but for other works, because they are contained in underdeveloped economies and are unable to compete with the big and middle European clubs in terms of money.

It happens because: 1) most players come from the lower and middle-low classes of these societies, and when an opportunity to achieve financial independence comes, they rarely choose to stay in their countries; 2) the difference between the payrolls of the south-americans and europeans is huge, 3) sports marketing is much more developed in Europe, while in Brazil just Corinthians and São Paulo stand out in this sector, which increases the financial dependence of latin clubs revenue from the sale of players, 4) assuming the club does not let the player leave but cannot renew his contract, after it expires he may sign with other clubs without generating revenue to the club that chose to hold him; 5) due to the first reason, empirically several cases may be noted in which a player who would like to leave the club to go to Europe but his club didn't allow, he becomes an ill-will player and/or pretends bruises in retaliation for his employer attitude.

The main questions to be answered with this study are: 1) Clubs of richer regions gain, on average, more titles than clubs from other regions?, 2) Clubs that win a title or classification for a major competition generate higher income from player transfers than those that do not achieve similar results or even get relegated to lower divisions?, 3) Clubs that invest more than others tend to, on average, achieve better results? It is expected to confirm the three questions above, ie that can be proved that, in general, richest regions has the most successful clubs, results produces money and money produces results.

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1) SOCCER: “TRANSLATION OF CONTEMPORARY HISTORY”

Soccer and the world around it several times had their stories merged. For Hilário Franco Junior, soccer, a "translation of contemporary history", is comparable to the Industrial Revolution, as it contains concepts like competition, productivity, quantifying results and specialization of functions (the latter may not apply to Hungary of the 50's nor the so called dutch “Total Football” of the 70's). According to Franco, the offside rule combines with the British spirit, as this was highlighted in the Revolution of 1689, which had not the violence of the French Revolution, a hundred years later.

Is out of the game who takes sneaky behavior (...) who is hidden in the back of the opponent to score (...) the situation of offside was called sneaking, a kind of ambush. More than illegal, offside would be immoral. (FRANCO JÚNIOR, 2007, p. 31).

For the author, the political condition was reflected in the tactical sector of soccer: England, the largest imperialist power in that time, played in 1-10 (one defender and ten attackers - there wasn't a goalkeeper yet), while Scotland, historically weaker, by the way occupied sometimes by the english, played in 2-2-6. The scottish game - passing game - was more collective, focused on teamwork rather than individual plays, reflected the growing momentum of social movements, such as the First International (1864), the advance of the rights of the workers (increase of union power) and doubling the number of voters (the socialization of the vote, including the right to a secret ballot).

The scottish workers' solidary way of playing (...) proved its undeniable superiority: in the first sixteen games (...) there were ten scottish wins, four draws and just two english wins. (FRANCO JÚNIOR, 2007, p. 30).

1.1) The diffusion of the sport

The idea of english rulers, at the beginning of soccer, was to restricte it to the elite, aimed at training future leaders by using the main features of the sport: fitness, moral and intelligence. But this intention was soon frustrated by the strong diffusion of the sport among the lower classes, in public schools and even by the workers (West Ham, Manchester United and Arsenal are examples of teams that started in industries, of the fields respectively of steel, rail and arms) (FRANCO JÚNIOR, 2007, p. 26-27).

While restricted to the affluent classes, the style of playing was dribbling and individual highlights.When the sport started to be played by the working class, the pass was highlighted, the teamwork predominated over individual plays. “The industrial cities (Manchester, Liverpool, Turin, Milan) became the powerhouses in the sport more than the administrative cities (London, Rome)” (FRANCO JÚNIOR, 2007, p. 101).

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1.2) Fascism

To help the Azzurra win the 1934 World Cup, Mussolini decided to import three argentinians and one brazilian player, Filó, ex-Corinthians and Palestra, who played for Lazio. A Mussolini's general began to coach the Italian Soccer Federation, and there was very doubtful referee's decisions in favor of Italy. "There was a fascist salute addressed to Mussolini by the trio of referees in the final game against Czechoslovakia" (FRANCO JÚNIOR, 2007, p. 50).

In the 1938 World Cup, the year of the Duce's rascist laws, after Italy beat Brazil in the semifinal, it could be read in the newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport: "Besides the athletic victory, shines the victory of the race" (FRANCO JÚNIOR, 2007, p. 52). In that same tournament, the austrian Matthias Sindelar, who participated of the big rematch of the newly annexed Austria by Germany when Austria won by 2-0, declined the invitation to defend the Nazi team. Sindelar was murdered months later.

During the Spanish Civil War, the president of Barcelona was murdered by Franco's folowers and the clubhouse was bombed by a fascist aircraft. The team, whose colors are the flag of Catalonia, has always been an anti-Franco symbol, while Real Madrid was Franco's team. One of the most important figures in the history of Real, Santiago Bernabéu, who played for the club from 1911 to 1928, and director for several years, was a Franco folower. It is rumored that the hiring of argentinian Alfredo di Stéfano, also sought by Barcelona and Real in the 50's had Franco's help.

In 1942, the germans assembled a team of Air Force officers to play against FC Start (combination of Dynamo and Lokomotiv), a team of Ukraine, country so occupied by the Nazis, but the Ukrainians won 5x3. Such counterpropaganda of the alleged superiority of "aryan race” lead to jail the entire ukrainian team, and the deaths of four of them.

1.3) The Cold War

In Hungary from the mid-twentieth century, all clubs were nationalized and the Hungarian tournament became a training for the Army team (the Honved), because all other teams should play using the tactical system of the next opponents of the Hungarian team. With this, the Hungarians won the gold medal in Helsinki (1952) and crushed the main european teams (3x0 against Italy and 6x3 against England). They played in the 4-2-4 strategy, with zonal marking and mobile positions, recalling of the socialist ideals of collectivity, while capitalist countries were playing in the 3-2-2-3 (WM), with individual marking. The star of this team, Ferenc Puskas, said: “It was a prototype of total football; when we attacked, everyone attacked. In defense it was just the same”. (FRANCO JÚNIOR, 2007, p. 58).

The hungarians were the great sensation of the the 1954 World Cup, which took place in Switzerland, a historically neutral country. The tournament can be viewed as an extension of the Cold War. The socialist Hungary defeated the capitalists South Korea, Brazil and Uruguay, losing 3x2 to the capitalist West Germany in the final. The germans viewed the tournament as a way to clean the image of causing World War II. This game involved several suspicious facts: syringes were found in the locker room and the german players were hospitalized weeks

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after the title, suggesting doping. Besides the British (capitalist) referees, that validated a german goal after a foul on the goalkeeper and canceled a legitimate hungarian goal . After the polemic final, the hungarians went undefeated for eighteen matches, while the germans lost four of six games, which makes clear the peculiarity of the final match of that tournament, even in soccer, the sport that is most surprising in terms of weaker teams beating stronger ones.

1.4) Soccer market and globalization

As soccer spread, the people's demand for tickets to watch the games of the team of their cities or even factories exploded. Merchants began to finance clubs, some players that stood out transferred to other teams in exchange for a better job. However, this type of activity was not approved by the elite. “In 1884, Preston North End was knocked out of the FA Cup on the charge of bringing players from other regions” (FRANCO JÚNIOR, 2007, p. 35).

These facts are extremely conflicting with the current world, where billions of dollars circulate every year with player transfers and marketing. In 1885, the Football Association accepted the professionalism of english soccer. Already in 1891, Arsenal opened part of its capital to shareholders. As it can be seen in Figure 1, the soccer market growth has been exponential. The difference between the transfers in 1893 and 2009 is so big that two charts were made, because one would leave the first half of the transfers nearly imperceptible.

In 1905, the player Alf Common was transferred from Sunderland to Middlesbrough for a thousand pounds, a very significant amount for that time. (...) In 1925, Arsenal accepted the proposition of his coach and manager Herbert Chapman and hired the player Charles Buchan, from Sunderland, for a fixed wage and an additional amount per goal scored. (FRANCO JÚNIOR, 2007, p. 43).

The first World Cup, in 1930, was hampered by the crash of the NYSE. The effects of the crisis, coupled with the choice of a non-european country to host the tournament, Uruguay (Olympic champion twice), lead to the participation of few europeans, only Belgium, France, Yugoslavia and Romania. The Cup had 13 national teams. Over time, the World Cup has proved to be a very profitable business: “5 billion cumulative viewers in 1982, 8 billion in 1986, 32 billion in 1990”. The first World Cup game to be televised was Yugoslavia 1x0 France, in 1954, with virtually no market value. With globalization, the growth of this niche has been very strong (Figure 2).

In 1978 the television rights were worth, in current values, only 15 million Euros; in 1982 they were worth 24 million. Since then began a slow escalation - 30 million in 1986, 60 million in 1990, 72 million in 1994, 84 million in 1998 and then a huge jump: 853 million in the 2002 World Cup and 991 million in 2006. When it comes to soccer clubs (...) in Europe between 1984 and 1999, revenue from television rights has grown 1220 times, from advertising contracts 33 times, and from tickets only 5 times. (FRANCO JÚNIOR, 2007, p. 123-124).

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The World Cups, as a rule, gather world's best players, except when a strong national team doesn't qualify to the competition or when a great player is the exception in a country. So the trend is that countries where the majority of World Cup players play, are the central countries in the world of soccer, the most powerful financially. Not surprisingly, this distribution is very uneven, with nearly half of the players playing in only five countries, while Brazil, underdeveloped, had only fifteen players (2%) in 2002 and seven (0.95%) in 2006 (Figure 3).

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In the 2002 World Cup, almost half the registered players played in clubs from just five countries: England (100 players or 13.5% of the total), Italy (75 or over 10%), Germany (59 or 8%), Spain (58 or nearly 8%), France (57 or 7.7%). In the 2006 World Cup, 103 worked in England (14% of total), 71 in Germany (9.6%), 60 in Italy (just over 8%), 58 in France (nearly 8%), 49 in Spain (nearly 7%). (FRANCO JÚNIOR, 2007, p. 122).

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2) TITLES AND WEALTH: EMPIRICAL APPROACH

Several analogies have already been seen, mainly of an economic and political view, between soccer and society around him. This section will be a more practical approach.

2.1) Prosperity: Countries X Clubs

Is the relative wealth of european nations reflected in the size of their teams? To answer this question two lists were collected: 1) 20 (twenty) most valuable soccer teams in the world, list published by Forbes in 2009 (Table 1); 2) 15 (fifteen) higher GDPs (Gross Domestic Product) in the the world (Table 2).

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Then, for ease of interpretation and identification of the relationship between these two factors within the scope of work (Europe), tables 1 and 2 were summarized in these tables, respectively: 1) the total value of teams in each country among the 20 most valuable in the world, all europeans (Table 3), 2) 6 European countries with highest GDP among the 15 largest in the world (Table 4).

Analyzing the tables, it can be noticed that all five countries whose clubs form the world's biggest fortunes are among the six largest european GDP. Among these six, only “outsider” Russia does not occupy an important place in the amount of clubs. Moreover, the two countries with the highest valuable clubs, England and Germany, are also the two Europeans with higher GDP, only reversed the order.

With the data above, we can conclude that using the GDP and wealth of clubs, there are indications pointing to a strong relationship between the wealth of european countries and their soccer clubs.

Does this relationship extend to the titles of the most important championship of Europe, UEFA Champions League? Table 5 show that yes, because the four countries with more titles are among the six highest GDPs in Europe, reservations made to France (fourth GDP but only one title) and Netherlands (six titles but without prominent GDP).

2.2) Prosperity: Cities/ States X Clubs

In the previous section we concluded that national wealth is significantly related to the richness of its clubs. In this section we'll analyze if among regions of a country, those with greater wealth get more success in national competitions. We will analyze the states of Brazil, Argentina's provinces and european cities.

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2.2.1) Brazil

Analyzing the GDP of the brazilian states (Table 6), we can note that among the top five, there are three states of the southeast and two of the south, and the last state of these two regions occupies the eleventh position. São Paulo is responsible for 33.9% of brazilian's GDP, and the first five states for 66.8%. Such economic concentration is undoubtedly reflected in the number of national titles won by these regions' clubs.

The ranking of winner states of the Brazilian Championship (started in 1971) and the Brazilian Cup (started in 1989) are presented, considering until the titles of 2009, won by Flamengo and Corinthians respectively (Table 7).

São Paulo leads both rankings, Rio Grande do Sul, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais also complete the top four in both. In the sum of the two rankings, São Paulo appears isolated in the first place, followed by Rio de Janeiro and Rio Grande do Sul, wuich are close to each other, and the fourth is Minas Gerais, away from the second and third places, but also away from the fifth. Crossing the ranking of GDP with domestic titles, there is strong relationship between the wealth of states and the national soccer titles won by his teams (correlation of 94.23%). The first four match, only reversing Rio Grande do Sul and Minas Gerais, and São Paulo's supremacy is noticeable in both.

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2.2.2) Argentina

Before presenting the data, it should be clear that the city of Buenos Aires is not part of the Province of Buenos Aires and neither is its capital, but it is an autonomous federal district. We collected the GDP of the Argentinian provinces (Table 8), and the champions from the start of professionalism (1931) until the 2010 Clausura tournament, won by Argentinos Juniors (Table 9). The data includes both the period when there was a championship by year as the current period, with the Apertura and Clausura tournaments (one each per year).

On the soccer field, there is strong superiority of Buenos Aires city when the subject is domestic titles, because their clubs have been champions three times more than the second placed in the ranking, the Province of Buenos Aires. It must be emphasized that the City of Buenos Aires is the home of Boca Juniors, River Plate, Vélez Sarsfield and San Lorenzo de Almagro.

Considering the GDP, the Province of Buenos Aires has absolute superiority, but considering that the City of Buenos Aires has only 203 Km², while the province has 307,571 Km², this superiority is not so clear (GDP per Km²: US$ 349,357,244 of the city of Buenos Aires, and US$ 357,743 of the Province). Anyway, also in the case of Argentina, the economy seems to be reflected in the number of titles of the states, because the first three coincide in both rankings and the correlation between GDP and provincial titles is 74.75%, strengthening the conclusion.

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2.2.3) Europe

For the analysis were collected european ranking of cities with highest GDP in each of the seven major countries in terms of european soccer (Table 10) and ranking by country of cities with more national titles (Table 11). It only shows the cities that were in 2005 among the 151 with higher GDP. Spain is the country that best relates the GDP of the cities with the national achievement. Madrid and Barcelona are the biggest cities in Spain as much to GDP as soccer. It is noteworthy that Madrid combines the titles of Real Madrid and Atletico de Madrid, while the city of Barcelona has only the titles of FC Barcelona. Portugal also follows this line, since Lisbon, the only portuguese city among the highest GDP, is the one that has more titles in the country. In Italy, among the four largest GDPs, only Naples is not highlighted in the ranking of the titles, allowing the city of Bologna to follow Rome, Turin and Milan.

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England and the Netherlands are no exception. London, Birmingham and Manchester were among the top four in the two rankings, and only there is a distortion of the city of Liverpool which is the top ranked soccer but neither appears in the ranking of GDP. In Holland, Amsterdam leads both rankings, and Rotterdam, very close to Amsterdam in the GDP, is the third in titles.

The relationship between GDP and titles is not so clear in Germany, and practically nonexistent in France. In Germany, the Munich soccer superiority is undeniable, but the city appears only with the third largest GDP, while the other three GDP, Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne, do not appear among the top four winners. In France, Paris is far more rich than other towns, but has a low position in the ranking of titles. Saint-Etienne, Marseille and Nantes are the biggest winners but do not appear in the ranking of GDP, so that only Lyon figure well in both rankings.

2.3) UEFA Champions League

2.3.1) Origins

The Wolverhampton Wanderers, in the early 1950s, gained prominence on the international scene, making a series of friendly games against Racing (Argentina), Spartak Moscow (Russia) and Honved (Hungary), a team with the reputation of having already beaten England and Italy. After the 3x2 victory over Honved, Stan Cullis, the Wolves' coach, backed by the British press, said that they were the world champions.

Gabriel Hanot, former French national team player, the man who created the Golden Ball (awarded to the best european player of the season), first to call Pelé as "King of Soccer", then editor of the french newspaper L'Equipe, did not agree and proposed a continental competition and perhaps worldwide, as noted in his quote below. Already in 1955 was created the UEFA Champions League, not yet with that name, created in the 1992-1993 season.

Before we declare that Wolverhampton are invincible, let them go to Moscow and Budapest. And there are other internationally renowned clubs: Milan and Real Madrid to name but two. The idea of a club world championship, or at least a European one – larger, more meaningful and more prestigious than the Mitropa Cup and more original than a competition for national teams – should be launched. (www.league-champions.com/champions-league-history)

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2.3.2) League structure

From 1955 to 1991, UEFA was played in the knockout system, with one representative per country, the national champion, except if it had won a European competition in previous year, in which the runner-up qualified too, since the European champion automatically qualified for the next championship, as in the current regulations, to defend his title.

From 1991 to 2003, there were many changes, increasing the number of clubs, so that, from 2003 until the present day, the league structure is: up to four clubs per country, depending on the coefficient of each national association, generated based on the participation of their clubs in the last five editions. There are three qualifying rounds, qualifying 10 teams to join the other 22 automatically classified to the group phase, formed by eight groups with four teams each, playing against each other twice, once at home and once away. In this phase, two teams from the same country cannot be drawn in the same group. The first two of each group qualify to the next phase.

Then starts the Round of 16, in which, just as in the group phase, two teams from the same country cannot be drawn to the same battle, this protection does not occur in the draws for the quarterfinais and semifinals. From the Round of 16 to the semifinals, there are two matches, one at home and one away. Teams qualify if they have more points, more goals difference or more goals scored away. In case of ties in these three criteria, the game goes into overtime, keeping the equality the penalty shootout decides who lives and who dies.

2.3.3) Winners (Table 12)

The first edition took place in 1955-56. In the first seven editions of the tournament, spanish teams went to all the finals, winning the first 5, all with Real Madrid (of Di Stefano, Puskas and Santamaría). The next two, Real Madrid and Barcelona lost to Eusébio's Benfica. In 1957, Manchester United, coming back home from the game that gave the club a spot in the semifinals, lost eight players in a plane crash.

The next three years saw Italy take the spanish domination, with Milan winning Benfica, and the two titles of Internazionale, against Real Madrid and Benfica. In 1966, Real came back to win the title, followed by Celtic, the first and only one scottish champion, and Manchester (of Bobby Charlton, survivor of Munich's tragedy, who scored two goals in the final, making The Reds the first english team to win the League.

Then followed a dominant sequence of dutch soccer, with Ajax losing to Milan, the Feyenoord's title (1970), and then for three times in a row Ajax won, with Cruyff, Krol, Neeskens and Co., base of "The Orange Machine". Then it was the german Bayern Munich's time to win three in a row (also the national team's base, champions in 1974, with Franz Beckenbauer, Sepp Maier, Gerd Müller and Paul Breitner).

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In the next ten seasons English soccer has dominated the tournament with the two Liverpool trophies and another two for Nottingham Forest, the only team to win the European Cup more times (two) than the national league of their country (one time). Liverpool won again in 1981, followed by Aston Villa. In 1983, the Hamburger interrupted the sequence, beating Juventus, but Liverpool regained the trophy the following year, and in 1985 lost to Juventus, a result which culminated in the deaths of 39 Juventus' fans and the prohibition of participation in the Leaguefor five years to all the english teams, and six years for Liverpool.

In 1986, Romania won its first and only title with Steuea Bucharest, followed by Porto and PSV Eindhoven. In the ten next seasons, Italy was present in nine finals, winning four times (3 with Milan and one with Juventus) and being runner up in 5 opportunities (1 with Sampdoria, 2 with Milan and one with Juventus). Only the 1991 final had no italian teams (Red Star x Marseille), which was the first and only title of Yugoslavia.

After Manchester's success in 1999, with Peter Schmeichel, Roy Keane, David Beckham and Ryan Giggs, for three years the spanish dominated, including the first final between two clubs from the same country (Real Madrid 3x0 Valencia), in 2000, followed by another Valencia's defeat (this time to Bayern Munich) and other Real's title (against Leverkusen).

In 2003, Milan and Juventus made an italian final, which Milan won on penalty shootout. The following year, Porto won again, this time against Monaco. From then until 2008-09, english soccer has been successful, with two titles (Liverpool and Manchester) and four final defeats (Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester), losing twice to Barcelona and one to Milan. The 2008 Final was english, with Manchester United beating Chelsea on penalty shootout. Last season examined, 2009-2010, the british have not even come to the semis (Inter x Barcelona and Lyon x Bayern Munich), and Internazionale, after 45 years, won the UEFA Champions League again.

By the way, Internazionale lived up to its name and became a great example of the globalization of the breton sport, as in the team that started the 2010 final there was not even one italian player (4 argentinians: Javier Zanetti, Walter Samuel, Diego Milito and Esteban Cambiasso, 3 brazilians: Julio Cesar, Maicon and Lucio, the cameroonian Samuel Eto'o, the dutch Wesley Sneijder, the macedonian Goran Pandev and the romanian Cristian Chivu). The only italian to join the team led by portuguese manager, José Mourinho, was Marco Materazzi, who entered the second half.

2.3.4) Money

UEFA is sponsored by multinational groups that have priority in TV ads during the games, plus four each advertisement boards along the perimeter of the field. Some of the current sponsors are Adidas (which provides the official ball), Ford, MasterCard, Sony (BRAVIA and PlayStation) and Heineken.

According to the website www.futebolfinance.com.br, each team qualified for the group phase of 2009/10 Champions League received 7.1 million euros. In this phase, each win was worth 800,000 euros and each tie 400,000 (Table 14). Who reached the Round of 16 received more 3 million euros, and plus 3.3 million for those who reached the quarterfinals, 4 million for each semifinalist, 5.2 million to the runner-up and 9 million to the champion (Table 13).

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Over 70 countries broadcast the Champions League matches, in more than 40 different languages. In 2009, the final between Barcelona and Machester United had 109 million viewers, for the first time surpassing the Super Bowl, the decision of the NFL (american football league, in the USA), which had 106 million, being this year's most watched sporting event in the world.

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3) ACHIEVEMENTS AND PROFITABILITY

3.1) Overview of transfers

Before testing the hypotheses of this work, will be exhibited the panorama of the players' transfers. For this, we collected a sample of 21,530 transfers from 01/08/1990 to 26/06/2009. They were divided into three groups: 1) G10, with the ten richest clubs in the world, according to the ranking by Forbes (2009), 2) G20-G10, with the following ten in this ranking, ie, from 11 to 20; 3) (G20), with all the rest, ie every team but the G10 and G10-G20.

In G10 were, by the order in the ranking: Manchester United, Real Madrid, Arsenal, Bayern Munich, Liverpool, Milan, Barcelona, Chelsea, Juventus and Schalke 04. In the G20-G10, also in order, were: Tottenham, Lyon, Roma, Internazionale, Hamburger, Borussia Dortmund, Manchester City, Werder Bremen, Newcastle and Stuttgart. Then were created 9 transfer groups: G10 to G10, G20-G10 and (G20), G20-G10 to G10, G20-G10 and (G20), and (G20) to G10, G20-G10 and (G20).

Unsurprisingly, the average value of G10 purchases is more than double the average value of G20-G10 puchases, which is almost ten times higher than the average of the rest of the purchases, the (G20). As to the sales, situation changes, as the average value of G10 is almost the same as the G20-G10's, maintaining the inferiority of (G20) (Table 15).

Figure 4 shows that the main factor for determining the position of the group of transfers is the buyer, because the G10 purchases have the highest average, followed by three subgroups of the G20-G10 and, at the end of the table, three subgroups of (G20). Among the purchases of the G10, the ones which the seller is the same G10 are the most expensive, followed by the G20-G10's and the (G20)'s. The same occurs between the G20-G10 and (G20)'s purchases, ie between purchases of the same group, sales of the G10 are the most expensive, followed by sales of the G20-G10 and (G20). With this data, it is possible to calculate the average balance of each group over the other two. It is observed that the G10 is deficient in relation to both the G20-G10 as the (G20). The G20-G10 has a surplus in relation to the G10 and a in relation to (G20). This has a surplus in relation to the other two. The balance of the G10 is negative, while G20-G10 and (G20) show positive balances (Table 16).

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So far one can notice that the richer the club, the more it spends to buy players and more it gets to sell them. However, these data allow a deeper analysis of the flow of players as well as the flow of money among the three groups. Between the G10 and G20-G10, you can note similar flow of players for both, but much greater flow of money from G10 to G20-G10 than the reverse, that because higher quality players tend to move to richer clubs, that pay obviously more to have them in their teams, while players who are already in the twilight of their careers or that are not meeting the expectations of the bigger club, do the opposite path, leaving the richer one. This explanation is valid also for relations between G10 and (G20) and between G20-G10 and (G20) (Figure 5).

Therefore, the richer the club, the more it invests in players. When they present satisfactory results they are generally kept, maybe until the end of their careers (or just leaving a bit earlier for a smaller team, when they are worth much less than when they were negotiated with the bigger club). To take good players from rich clubs are the kind of transfer that leads the “most expensive” lists. When results are disappointing, there is also the depreciation, not by time, as in the previous situation, but by “failure”, and players also leave the richer clubs.

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At first sight, one might assume that the loss of the G10 clubs in player transfers are solved with income from ticket sales, sponsorships and television fees, but usually it does not happen. In 2009, analyzing the top 20 European teams, revenue comes mostly from broadcasting rights, representing 42% of the total. Advertising on the shirt and sports material represent 32%. Ticket sales received 26% of the total. English clubs lead the ranking of debtors (€ 3.6 billion, € 1.9 billion only of Chelsea and Manchester), followed by Spain (€ 1 billion, € 700 million of that only of Real Madrid) and Italy (500 million, 400 million of that is Milan's). Businesses have even grown amid the recent economic crisis, but the situation of European clubs is of strong debt (PEQUENOS VASCAÍNOS, 2010).

The main soccer clubs in Europe accumulate net debt of € 5.5 billion (...) Almost € 3 billion is owed to banks by just 20 teams, including the most profitable ones, as Real Madrid, Manchester United and Milan (…) At least 47% of European teams are not able to cover their costs, and 23% of the bigger teams continue to suffer losses of more than 20% of income (...) for each € 5,000 of revenue, most teams spend an average of € 6,000 (PEQUENOS VASCAÍNOS, 2010).

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3.2) Extraction of players' value

The transfers above were grouped by player, so if a team “A” purchases from team “B” the player “X” in period t by a value “V1” and sells to “C” (it is possible tha C=B) the same player “X” in the period (t +1) by a value “V2”, “A” is considered the Key-team, “B” the Seller and “C” the Buyer. Transfers whose V1 equals zero were eliminated so we can do the analysis of profitability percentage, as well as alone transfers, ie, the ones whose player was not involved in any other transfer besides it.

With that, we want to corroborate the previous conclusion that the G10 clubs tend to have lower profitability in transfers than the smaller teams. The G10 had 271 observations, gathering 542 transfers, the G20-G10 had 236 observations, gathering 472 transfers, and (G20) had 6,747 observations, gathering 13,494 transfers.

The results presented in Table 17 show that, on average, players tend to remain 9 more months in G10 clubs than the G20-G10 clubs, and 6.5 months longer in G20-G10 clubs than in (G20) clubs, which is theoretically expected, since the bigger the club the more the player is willing to stay and the better the conditions of the club to handle the costs of hiring and keeping the player (Figure 6).

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Again, the G10 clubs appear as deficient in the tranfers market, because, on average, they receive 47,7% less for players' sales than they pay in their purchases (average loss of 1,754,686 pounds on each transaction, ie buying and selling the same player). G20-G10 clubs receive, on average, 34.1% less in sales (average loss of 671,614 pounds), and (G20) clubs receive 21.7% less (average loss of 63,227 pounds).

We can interpret this result as the higher extraction of players' value in richer clubs, just because they are the players who have more talent to be used, ie if a player presents different (superior) quality than the others, he interests richer clubs, which buy him provide all the conditions for his ability to shine and help the club. Over time, the player will depreciate, especially by age, and then, when he no longer meets the needs of the richer club, he is sold to a smaller club, obviously for a lower price than the richer one had paid times before (Figure 7).

3.3) Clubs' wealth and their achievements

The more money a club has, the more victories he will have? It is hoped that the following test confirms this assumption. Since 2004, UEFA Champions League has been having the round of 16, then the quarterfinals, semifinals and final. It will be used the data from 2003/04 to 2009/10 leagues to support the hypothesis that money generates achievements. To do so, these two lists will be crossed: the 20 richest clubs in the world according to Forbes, and clubs present in the league phases told above. Thus, it is expected that the richest clubs have more participation in ultimate stages of the UEFA Champions League.

Table 19 lists the ten richest clubs, followed by ten others present on the Forbes G20, followed by clubs that are not on the list, but had some participation in the round of 16, quarterfinals, semifinals and/or final, from 2004 to 2010. Note the much higher incidence of G10's titles, as well as runners-up and participations in the semifinals.

As shown in Table 18, the G10 was responsible in these seven years, for 71% of the titles, 79% of the runners-up, 75% of the semifinals shares, 61% of the quarterfinals shares and 49% of participation in the round of 16. Note also the domination of the G10 over the G20, since most of the G20 achievements are due to the G10: 83% of G20 titles were won by G10, and also 92% of the runners-up, 91% of the semifinals shares, 79% of the quarterfinals shares and 73% of the participations in the round of 16. This shows that the more distant the stage is, the

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greater the relative share of the richest clubs (positive relation between money and achievement).

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3.4) Clubs' campaigns and their revenues

The better the success of a club in the league of his country the greater its revenue from selling players? It is hoped that the following test confirms this assumption. It was collected a sample of 12,899 transfers, from 01/01/2001 to 26/06/2009, totaling the value of £ 6,797,438,001. Of this sample, groups were created according to the result of the player's club, ie the selling club in the league in his country. If a club in the 2000/01 league, for example, has qualified to the UEFA Champions League, all sales of players from that club in 2001 enter the group of Qualified for UEFA Champions League. The “A” Leagues tested (English, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch, Portuguese, German and Scottish) had four groups each: Qualified to UEFA Champions League, Qualified to UEFA Cup, Middle clubs (nor relegated or qualified to major competitions) and Relegated to Lower Division. The lower leagues analyzed (“B” and “C” English, “B” Spanish, “B” Italian, “B” French and “B” Scottish) had three groups each: Promoted to Superior Division, Middle Clubs (nor Relegated or Promoted) and the Relegated to Lower Division.

Adding all observations used in the 14 analyzed leagues, we have 7579 transfers, amounting £ 3,442,746,001, or 58.76% of the transfers sample, totaling 50.65% of its value.

Among the English, Spanish, Italian, French, German, Dutch, Portuguese and Scottish Leagues, only the German League had an average players' selling value ranked lower for the Qualified to UEFA Champions League than the Qualified to UEFA Cup. In all other seven leagues, who qualified to the Champions League sold players for more pounds, on average, than those who qualified for UEFA Cup, the Middle and Relegated clubs. The English, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Scottish Leagues showed the expected order, ie clubs Qualified to Champions League sell players for more money, on average, than the Qualified to UEFA Cup, that sell players for more money than Middle clubs, which sell players for more money than Relegated clubs. The Portuguese case shows the strongest leadership of the Qualified to Champions League, but the other three levels are almost equal (Figure 8).

The expected gradual situation also occurs in the “B” Leagues: English, Spanish, Italian and French, besides the “C” English League, in which Promoted teams sell, on average, its players for more money than the Middle clubs, which sell players for more money than the Relegated ones. Only the “B” Scotland League has a higher average value for the Middle teams than the Promoted (Figure 9).

Agregating the eight major series analyzed, we have 3705 transfers (28.75% of the sample), adding £ 2,966,903,500 (43.65% of the sample). The result is expected because the average value of players' sales from the Qualified to Champions League is £ 1,421,458, 54.4% more than the average value of players' sales from Qualified to UEFA Cup (£ 920,869), which is 69% higher than the average value of players' sales from Middle clubs (£ 544,897), which is 15.4% higher than the average value of players' sales from Relegated clubs (£ 472,039) (Figure 10).

Agregating the 6 lower series analyzed, we have 3874 transfers (30.03% of the sample), adding £ 475,842,501 (7% of the sample). The result is also expected because the average value of players' sales from Promoted clubs is £ 216,731, 105.8% higher than the average value of players' sales from Middle clubs (£ 105,328), which is 89.5% higher than the average value of players' sales from Relegated clubs (55,582 pounds) (Figure 11). All average values were calculated using the simple mean (sum of observations / number of observations).

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3.5) Clubs' campaigns and their payrolls

The higher the payroll of a team, the better its placing in the National League? It is hoped the following test confirms this assumption. The data relating to payroll teams are not easily acquired, so this recent research only had access to three of the European ones: the 2005/2006 English League and the 2007/2008 and 2009/2010 Italian Leagues. Crossing the data with the score of each team in these leagues it is expected that the higher the payroll, the better position in the final league standings.

The 2005/2006 English League had Chelsea as champions, followed by Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Tottenham. Sorting by decreasingly payroll, Chelsea would also be the champion and then followed by Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool. Note that only the order between the 3rd and 4th change, but the clubs are the same. The two lists are also near

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at the end of the table, because in both, Sunderland is the last one and West Brom the second to last (Table 20). Thus, it is not surprising that the correlation (excluding Middelsbrough, whose data were not provided) between the points scored and payrolls is 84.2%.

The 2007/2008 Italian League had Internazionale as champions, followed by Roma, Juventus, Fiorentina and Milan. The list according to the payroll has those same five leaders, only changing the order to Milan, Inter, Juventus, Roma and Fiorentina (Table 21). The correlation is 76%. The 2009/2010 Italian League is an extreme case of the relationship between points earned and wages paid, as the final classification by points is not altered in any position when it is sorted according to the payroll, with a correlation of 89.9% (Table 22).

Obviously, the sample above studied is small, as are three leagues among the great European soccer, which has at least five major leagues per year, but the three leagues above strengthen a lot the hypothesis that money brings success, as clubs who paid the biggest salaries were the best placed overall.

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CONCLUSION

Throughout the work, several tests were performed relating money and soccer results. There were stablished the following relationships: 1) Richer regions have more valuable clubs, 2) Richer regions have more successful clubs, 3) Richer clubs hold players for more time, 4) Richer clubs extract more value from their players; 5) Richer clubs achieve better results on the field, 6) Clubs who achieve good results add value to their players; 7) Clubs that pay higher wages to the players achieve better rank in their national league standings.

The above relations can be merged into two major conclusions: 1) positive sports results generate cash, 2) Cash generates positive sporting results. From this, two circles may be formed: Virtuous Circle: a club achieves soccer wins, then it makes money, which if well invested, should generate more good results in the future; Vicious Circle: a club does not achieve good soccer results, which restricts its financial gains, which hamper investments aimed at a future reversal of this adverse situation. Therefore, the relationship between money and soccer, investment and titles, financial and sportive results, were corroborated by this work.

Finally, there are interesting topics for future works: The clubs' Youth - the investment and the different productivity of “players factories”, the recent growth of the soccer market in the Middle East and Eastern Europe; the return of brazilian players at the end of career for clubs in Brazil (Ronaldo and Roberto Carlos in Corinthians, Deco in Fluminense), the naturalization of players to defend foreign national teams (Deco, Pepe and Liedson in Portugal, Camoranesi in Italy, Cacau, Podolski, Özil, Khedira and Klose in Germany).

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