The Invisible Hand of God

There’s a line of thinking shared by some soccer pundits, in the UK and abroad, that goes like this:

Thirty years ago, English football was purer — better — than it is today.

Today, the game is all about money.

Fantastically foreign owners have snapped up the biggest clubs and turned them into their personal piggy banks.

Modern footballers are enormously rich and enormously entitled and enormously vile.

Yes, the product on the pitch is world-class, but it’s just that: A product.

The fans have lost control of their own clubs, and TV networks and megalomaniac club owners have become all-powerful.

I have seen little mainstream media coverage, however, that analyzes these notions using evidence, rather than merely anecdotes.

For a potential story, I would propose quantifying the available data in a way that could shed light on these ideas, either in the form of a text story, infographics, or both.

Specifically, I would propose examining the size of English Premier League clubs’ financial might. What are their typical annual profits or losses, and how have these sums changed in recent decades?

How have players’ salaries changed over the decades, relative to inflation and salary gains for other athletes in the world’s biggest sports leagues?

How have ticket prices changed over the years, relative to inflation?

Compared with years past, are today’s players in England actually involved in more criminal activity or behavior that is deemed socially unacceptable?

How would one quantify the “quality” of the league in moral terms?

To answer these questions, I would seek to interview experts, conduct independent research, speak with fans, and present the data in a compelling visual manner.

(Image via The Guardian.)

Fernando Roig, the president of Spanish second division side Villarreal, recently announced that the club has given up public subsidies of more than 3 million Euros amid the country’s ongoing financial crisis.

The reason: Roig said that the people of Spain need the money more than his club.

(A Spanish-language story on the news is available at El Periodico Mediterraneano here, and a Galician-language account is at ESPN here.)

As seen in the image above, Villarreal fan Ravi Ramineni, a contributor to the On Football blog, Tweeted the news on November 26.

His message was retweeted 71 times and favorited by 5 users.

Follow the link below for a Storified collection of Twitter responses.

[View the story “Villarreal Gives Up Public Funding Amid Spanish Economic Crisis: Reactions on Twitter” on Storify]

As you’ll see, Twitter users praised the club’s move, characterizing it as selfless given the country’s ongoing economic malaise.

Hi again. Today I’ll be sharing a few economics/soccer voices and news outlets worth following.

While traditional news organizations provide reliable coverage of on-field events in the world’s biggest leagues and competitions, I’m focusing here on sources that reliably provide insightful reporting on the intersection of soccer and economics.

1. The brains behind Soccernomics 

As I mentioned in my introductory post, one excellent resource on the topic is “Soccernomics,*” a 2009 book written by the journalist Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski, an economist. Kuper is a columnist for the Financial Times and is active on Twitter. Szymanski, an economics professor the University of Michigan, writes a blog on sports economics for Forbes.

Both Kuper and Szymanski are highly knowledgeable — and active online.

2. The Economist‘s Game Theory blog

Another good resource for economics/soccer insight is Game Theory, a blog published by the venerable UK magazine The Economist. The blog addresses the ways in which soccer and other sports collide with business, politics, and science.

Two recent blog posts and stories from the magazine that the blog has pointed to, for example, include pieces on Manchester United’s IPO and the bankruptcy of the popular Scottish club Rangers FC. In stories like these, The Economist uses its characteristic analysis and wit to describe the world of sports and business.

3. Gabriele Marcotti

Soccer journalist Gabriele Marcotti, who writes for The Wall Street Journal and Sports Illustrated, among other outlets, covers all aspects of The Beautiful Game and often provides analysis of business and economics issues.

Marcotti — who also happens to be a Columbia Journalism School grad — typically writes pieces that eschew the hyperbole seen so often in soccer coverage. Two of his recent WSJ stories include a look at the lack of transparency regarding soccer players’ salaries and the business and regulatory structure of the German domestic league. (Marcotti is also active on Twitter.)

* Apologies, again, to England fans. But for the record, the subtitle of Soccernomics is: “Why England Loses, Why Germany and Brazil Win, and Why the U.S., Japan, Australia, Turkey–and Even Iraq–Are Destined to Become the Kings of the World’s Most Popular Sport.”

Welcome to this blog, which I’m calling “The Invisible Hand of God.”

I’ll be writing here about the intersection of economics and soccer. The blog’s name combines “the invisible hand” (Adam Smith’s theory of how markets are governed) and “the hand of God” (the phrase soccer great Diego Maradona used to describe a notorious World Cup goal he scored against England in the 1986 World Cup)*.

Why economics and soccer?

In short: Because they’re critical subjects. And because I love them both.

Both economics and football play significant roles in most people’s lives, whether they think about it or not. Even for people who dislike business (or even numbers) and who can’t stand soccer (or even sports), the world is shaped by business and sporting factors. Money and resources matter to individuals, countries, political unions, and other groups of people. And — for the majority of the world’s population — so does soccer.

More people watch the World Cup every four years than any other sporting event. And at club level, more people cheer on their favorite professional sides globally than root for any other kinds of sports teams. Soccer is important the world over.

Here are two recent examples of how soccer and economics are intertwined in compelling ways.

In Spain, a financially ailing nation in the economically ailing Eurozone, unemployment is now at 25 percent. What does this mean for the financial future of the country’s domestic soccer league, which many consider to be the world’s best? What are the economic implications, in terms of financing and revenue from attendance, for Barcelona Football Club, the world’s best club team? What does the economic crisis mean for the Spanish national team, the reigning world and European champions?

Another example of how economics and soccer intermingle: In the last decade or so, very, very rich individuals have begun buying professional football clubs, especially those in the popular English Premier League. The latest such buyer is the UAE’s Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who bought the once-mediocre Manchester City Football Club and invested three quarters of a billion dollars into the team. The team won the league last year and are among the favorites to win during this campaign. What does this kind of massive financial investment mean for entities, like Manchester City, that were until recently though of as being more akin to nonprofit organizations than corporations?

In future posts, I’ll be referencing several resources. One is the excellent 2009 book “Soccernomics,” by the journalist Simon Kuper and the economist Stefan Szymanski.

I’ll also be referring to soccer and economics journalism from mainstream media outlets like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, as well as soccer-specific sites like Soccernet and various blogs. And I’ll be aiming to tap the knowledge of the vibrant community of soccer players, pundits, and journalists on Twitter. Many of them are listed  on my 106-member Twitter soccer list.

What do you make of all this? Do you have ideas you’d like me to explore? Think I’m full of it, or that this is intolerably boring stuff? Let me know in the comments.

*Apologies to all England fans.