Football, corporate ownership, and conflicts of interest: Dark spaces and black boxes

Abstract

In recent years, the literature on football and accounting has focused on some opaque spaces in the ownership of football clubs, as well as in the definition of collaboration and commercial partnership mechanisms that, even in the case of larger clubs, are at times misrepresented in financial reports (Chadwick et al., 2018; Sudgen et al., 2017; Holzen et al., 2019). Our paper describes the case of Italy and its main relevance lies in that spectrum of analysis; in effect, the strictly familial nature of Italian capitalism clearly emerges in the case of football, as well. The clubs are controlled by influential entrepreneurial families (often operating in the entertainment industry) who through football consolidate their image. Put in these terms, the risks of conflicts of interest and opacity in commercial formulas, already highlighted by the best and recent literature, are reflected in a system of economic and meta/non-economic returns in which the object “football” becomes an instrument of social recognition and financial growth via indirect mechanisms.

Decrypting the specifics of professional football club investments: Why? What? How? An integrative review

“…After all exclusions had been made, similar to Schreyer and Ansari (2021), the authors cross-checked the references of nine articles, including literature reviews on the topic or subtopics of investors in professional football. The articles analyzed for forward-and backwardcitation were Amirnejad et al (2018), Baur and McKeating (2011), Faraudello and Gelmini (2019), Jambor (2018), Jones (2014), Rohde and Breuer (2016b), Breuer (2017), S anchez et al (2020) and Ward and Hines (2017). The majority of relevant references in these articles had already been included in the data sample, confirming the approach's adequacy.…”

“…The articles analyzed for forward- and backward-citation were Amirnejad et al. (2018), Baur and McKeating (2011), Faraudello and Gelmini (2019), Jambor (2018), Jones (2014), Rohde and Breuer (2016b), Rohde and Breuer (2017), Sánchez et al. (2020) and Ward and Hines (2017).…”

“…Qatar uses the investment to promote the country globally and establish a strong tourism brand (Chanavat, 2017;Desbordes and Chanavat, 2014). Further indirect business motives are establishing third-party investment funds, money laundering, sports betting fraud (Faraudello and Gelmini, 2019) and increasing broadcasting revenues (Chadwick, 2007). Besides business and political motives, literature identifies emotional attachment as a reason for shareholders to participate in listed clubs and other supporter-involved financial instruments (Cocieru et al, 2019;Huth, 2020;Nikolychuk et al, 2007;Smith and Smith, 2019).…”

Caught in a trap? Financial Fair Play Regulations and the case of Scottish football

“…Accordingly, while base conceptualisations of achievement remain ultimately defined in sporting terms, the industry has become ever-more fixated with financial metrics for success thanks to increased reliance on corporate sponsorship and international investment (Kennedy and Kennedy, 2016). Yet, while European football has undoubtedly changed in recent years, this has not occurred without dissent; widespread fan criticism has invariably been levelled at the power hoarded by super agents, multiple club-owning families and those involved in the “business” of football more generally (Faraudello and Gelmini, 2019; Rossi et al , 2016).…”