Measuring efficiency and productivity in professional football teams: evidence from the English Premier League

Abstract

British football clubs are unusual businesses. While the debate about the objectives of football clubs in not new, the substantial increase in income within football since the 1990s has given it greater prominence among stakeholders. More fundamentally the presence of non-financial objectives also raises the question of how to measure the performance of football clubs. Ratio analysis has been commonly used to assess the financial performance of companies, this analysis being based on company financial statements. Univariate financial analysis involves the examination and discussion of one ratio at a time, with a view to drawing tentative conclusions by comparing the result of that ratio with some yardstick of comparison. However, the use of univariate financial analysis has limitations. In the 1970s the use of multivariate financial analysis became more prevalent, with techniques like multi discriminant analysis and logit being widely used, particularly in the area of predicting corporate failure. More recently techniques have emerged in operational research that is concerned with measuring efficiency (Guzmán,2006).