Billions of euros are invested every year by professional football clubs for the recruitment of players. How do market actors decide prices? This paper presents an econometric model unveiling the key factors coming into play in determining fees on the transfer market for professional football (soccer) players. The statistical technique used to build the model is multiple linear regression (MLR), with fees paid by clubs as an independent variable. The sample comprises over 2000 transactions of players transferred for money from clubs in the five major European leagues during the period stretching from July 2012 to November 2021. This paper notably highlights the importance of taking into consideration the remaining duration of contracts binding players with the club to which they belong, a factor often neglected in the existing literature. It also shows that a statistical model can explain over 80% of the differences in the transfer fees paid for players. This paper reveals various applications of the approach developed for the football industry to both assess and predict football players’ transfer fees and values: transfer negotiations, club sales or purchases, bank credit, fund raising, financial planning and communication, legal disputes, etc.

Depuis la promulgation de l’arrêt « Bosman » en 1995, le nombre de joueurs expatriés recensés dans les principaux championnats européens a considérablement augmenté. Cet article montre que cette augmentation a surtout concerné les joueurs originaires d’Afrique et d’Amérique latine. Leur mobilité intervient dans un contexte très spéculatif au sein duquel de nombreux intermédiaires interagissent pour construire les canaux migratoires permettant aux joueurs de circuler à travers différents pays. Les trajectoires idéales — typiques de joueurs africains en Europe — permettent d’illustrer les logiques sociales, géographiques et économiques à la base de ces flux.

Professional football clubs invest vast amounts of money in the recruitment of players. This article presents the latest advances in statistical modeling of the factors that market actors take into consideration to determine the transfer prices of professional football players. It extends to a global scale the econometric approach previously developed by the authors to evaluate the transfer prices of players under contract with clubs from the five major European leagues. The statistical technique used to build the model is multiple linear regression (MLR), with fees paid by clubs as an independent variable. The sample comprises over 8000 transactions of players transferred for money from clubs worldwide during the period stretching from July 2014 to March 2024. This paper shows that a statistical model can explain up to 85% of the differences in the transfer fees paid for players. Despite the specific cases and other possible distortions mentioned in the discussion, the use of a statistical model to determine player transfer prices is thus highly relevant on a global scale.

Billions of euros are invested every year by professional football clubs for the recruitment of players. This article presents the latest advances in the statistical modelling of the factors that market actors take into consideration to determine the transfer prices of professional football players. It extends to a global scale the econometric approach previously developed by the authors to evaluate the transfer prices of players under contract with clubs from the five major European leagues. The statistical technique used to build the model is multiple linear regression (MLR), with fees paid by clubs as an independent variable. The sample comprises over 8000 transactions of players transferred for money from clubs worldwide during the period stretching from July 2014 to March 2024. This paper shows that a statistical model can explain almost 85% of the differences in the transfer fees paid for players. Despite the specific cases and other possible distortions mentioned in the discussion, the use of a statistical model to determine player transfer prices seems highly relevant.

Au cours du mois de février 2007, Neuchâtel célèbre l’inauguration d’un stade de football flambant neuf. Pour le club de Neuchâtel Xamax, qui fait face à des difficultés économiques chroniques, cette infrastructure laisse miroiter un avenir prometteur. On vante alors sans retenue le plus grand confort de la nouvelle enceinte que l’on décrit comme un lieu convivial et propice à la rencontre, sensé attirer un public toujours plus nombreux pour de longs après-midis festifs consacrés au spectacle du football. Analyser l’impact social réel de la modernisation de ce type d’infrastructure s’apparente toutefois à un exercice d’équilibriste. Il implique non seulement une réflexion critique sur des attributs qui peuvent être considérés comme « socialement vertueux » pour la collectivité, mais nécessite également de décrypter le fonctionnement du lieu dans toute sa complexité. Dès lors, cette recherche passe au préalable par la construction d’un outil théorique et méthodologique permettant d’organiser l’étude du « potentiel intégrateur » d’un tel type d’espace. Dans le cadre d’une analyse portant sur le stade de football, l’utilisation de cette grille de lecture nous montre alors que, à Neuchâtel, ce lieu joue un rôle social plutôt important. Fondée sur différentes sources (enquêtes par questionnaire, statistiques relatives aux affluences, analyse des discours sur un forum de discussion en ligne, etc.), la comparaison des situations qui caractérisent l’ancienne et la nouvelle infrastructure conduit néanmoins à tirer un bilan nuancé du processus de modernisation.