Exploring the Market of Soccer Player Registrations: An Empirical Analysis of the Difference Between Transfer Fees and Estimated Players’ Inherent Value

Abstract

This paper examines the determinants of the difference between soccer player registration transfer fees and the estimated inherent value of transferred players. The results show that this difference increases for players competing in the same league as that of the acquiring team, players acquired during winter transfer windows, defender registrations, and in the presence of player registration swaps. It decreases for midfielder registrations and for registrations purchased the year immediately before the expiration of players’ contracts. Finally, the difference between registration transfer fees and estimated players’ inherent value increases up to when players are 28 years old and decreases afterwards.

Exploring determinants of international transfers of women soccer players in Portuguese football

“…Athletes usually have a club change cycle depending on their age, the experience accumulated in the contracting clubs' levels, and the specific needs of squad renewal (both the ceding team and the contracting team). Nationality is another important dimension 14 ; nationality associated with the same spoken language helps in transmitting information between teammates and coaches, facilitating integration in squads of the contracting team (the so-called reduction of transaction costs). Performance characteristics are also repeatedly studied.…”

Football players in light of economic value theory: Critical review and conceptualisation

“…14 The authors highlight the conceptual discrepancies in the clearest possible manner in the literature: 'transfer fees are to be paid only for players with a valid contract to compensate its breach, whilst Transfermarkt also attributes "market values" to out-of-contract footballers who are free to sign for another team with no transfer indemnity payment' (Poli et al, 2022, p. 2). In light of this distinction, Campa (2022) Nevertheless, this conceptual difference does not seem to prevent researchers from using Transfermarkt values as empirical proxies for actual transfer fees, which may draw criticism in the coming years.…”

“…Finally, 46 papers presented such definitions or discussion and were included. We also added three additional articles published after 19 November 2021 (Campa, 2022;Poli et al, 2022;Rubio Martín et al, 2022) that were retrieved via alerts on Scopus, EBSCO and Google Scholar with the same search terms and selected by A1. These 49 articles and the selected definitions and discussions are presented in Appendix B.…”

“…This clear distinction between the concepts, which is missing in many of the following academic works, is nevertheless stated on the Transfermarkt website in the following terms: 'In general, the Transfermarkt market values are not to be equated with transfer fees' or 'the goal is not to predict a price but an expected value of a player in a free market' ('Transfermarkt Market Value Explained', 2021). Campa (2022) 2019) but also to other authors (Felipe et al, 2020;Kirschstein & Liebscher, 2018;Müller et al, 2017) to question the use of the Transfermarkt values. 14 The authors highlight the conceptual discrepancies in the clearest possible manner in the literature: 'transfer fees are to be paid only for players with a valid contract to compensate its breach, whilst Transfermarkt also attributes "market values" to out-of-contract footballers who are free to sign for another team with no transfer indemnity payment' (Poli et al, 2022, p. 2).…”

“…This clear distinction between the concepts, which is missing in many of the following academic works, is nevertheless stated on the Transfermarkt website in the following terms: ‘In general, the Transfermarkt market values are not to be equated with transfer fees’ or ‘the goal is not to predict a price but an expected value of a player in a free market’ (‘Transfermarkt Market Value Explained’, 2021). Campa (2022) also reports Transfermarkt executives' words that corroborate this view: ‘Our estimations do not have the aim of accurately predicting the transfer fee associated with a certain player because we think that the market value differs in some cases’ (Christian Schwarz, Transfermarkt Head of International/Coordinator of Market Values, email to the author) and ‘our values shall not be considered as a forecast for transfer sums’ (Steffen Dombert, Transfermarkt web analyst, email to the author). Poli et al (2022) is then one of the only articles that acknowledges the conceptual confusion in the literature and points to Serna Rodríguez et al (2019) but also to other authors (Felipe et al, 2020; Kirschstein & Liebscher, 2018; Müller et al, 2017) to question the use of the Transfermarkt values.…”