| Description |
Soccer, the world's most popular sport, continues to see immense growth. Clubs, now with more money at their disposal than ever before, seek any marginal advantage they can get over their competitors. One such way clubs seek to gain an advantage is by acquiring players through transfers. For teams competing in Europe's top 5 leagues (England, Spain, Germany, Italy, and France) the majority of their players come from transfers from other clubs. Transfers can be one of the most intriguing aspects of professional soccer. The narratives around these moves can be captivating; a player leaving their boyhood team for a big club, a team taking a chance on an aging player in a gamble to win titles, or a veteran moving to a smaller club after a storied career. To acquire a player, a buying club must agree to a transfer fee with the selling club. Negotiating transfer fees for both incoming and outgoing players is one of the most important parts of the operation of a soccer club. As the amount of money in the game is growing, so are the sizes of transfer fees. In a market that has been characterized by more games and newly emerging leagues, I attempt to identify the factors that influence transfer fees the most. I find that the traits most closely correlated with the transfer fee are typically not advanced stats, but rather more general player attributes and transfer circumstances. This analysis also suggests that transfer fees increase with the buying and selling club size. The emergence of wealthy soccer club owners has raised questions over whether big spending on transfers automatically translates to on-field success. In order to investigate this, I conduct an analysis examining the relationship between spending and on-field performance. I find a positive relationship between on-field performance as measured by league finish in the 2022/23 season and transfer spending. But the extent to which transfer spending explains on-field performance is limited; evidently, there are other factors that determine club success. If transfer spending doesn't guarantee success, then what do successful clubs do that makes them successful? The final analysis of this paper looks at the squads of each of Europe's league-winning teams and see what they have in common. This analysis highlights the importance of taking advantage of players approaching the ends of their contracts as well as investing in both young and older, more experienced players. iii |
