ABSTRACT

Research question: We consider player trading as one of the distinctive features of football clubs’ business models and how these models have been influenced since the implementation of Financial Fair Play (FFP). Considering the Italian financial and economic context in the football sector, we investigate whether Serie A football clubs adopt earnings manipulation as a result of trading players’ economic rights.

Research methods: The empirical analysis includes the football clubs competing in the Italian Serie A from 2005 to 2018. Using an unbalanced panel dataset composed of 275 club-year observations (38 different clubs), our estimations are run by using fixed effects OLS models. Clubs’ net capital income from sales of football players is used as a proxy of earning manipulation. We control for clubs’ football performance, size and reputation.

Results

and Findings: By applying Bartov’s model based on asset sales, our results confirm the adoption of asset manipulation behaviours in the football industry, wherein players’ economic rights sales are a preponderant financial item affecting economic performance. Specifically, net income from trading players is significant and positively linked with Serie A clubs’ profitability, while leverage is significant after the introduction of FFP and especially for the most prominent Serie A clubs.

Implications: Our results confirm that Italian Serie A has been chronically dependent on player trading to maintain their financial sustainability. UEFA’s regulations could be assessed and modified to enable them to prevent and reveal the real activities and dynamics behind the player transfer market (profit smoothing behaviours).

中文翻译：

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足球运动员与资产操纵：意大利甲级联赛的足球转会管理

摘要

研究问题：我们认为球员交易是足球俱乐部商业模式的显着特征之一，以及自财务公平竞赛（FFP）实施以来这些模式受到的影响。考虑到意大利足球行业的金融和经济背景，我们调查了意甲足球俱乐部是否通过交易球员的经济权利而采取盈利操纵行为。

研究方法：实证分析包括 2005 年至 2018 年参加意大利甲级联赛的足球俱乐部。使用由 275 个俱乐部年度观察（38 个不同俱乐部）组成的不平衡面板数据集，我们的估计是通过固定效应 OLS 模型进行的。俱乐部通过出售足球运动员获得的净资本收入被用作收入操纵的指标。我们控制俱乐部的足球表现、规模和声誉。

结果

研究结果：通过应用基于资产出售的巴托夫模型，我们的结果证实了足球行业中存在资产操纵行为，其中球员的经济权利出售是影响经济绩效的主要财务项目。具体来说，来自交易球员的净利润非常显着，并且与意甲俱乐部的盈利能力呈正相关，而引入FFP后，杠杆率也非常显着，尤其是对于最著名的意甲俱乐部而言。

启示：我们的结果证实，意大利甲级联赛长期依赖球员交易来维持其财务可持续性。可以评估和修改欧足联的法规，使其能够防止和揭示球员转会市场背后的真实活动和动态（利润平滑行为）。