Does Managerial Turnover Affect Football Club Share Prices?

This paper analyses the 53 managerial sackings and resignations from 16 stock exchange listed English football clubs during the nine seasons between 2000/01 and 2008/09. The results demonstrate that on average, a managerial sacking results in a post-announcement day share price rise of 0.8%, whilst a resignation leads to a drop in share price (0.5%) that continues for a month thereafter, cumulating in a negative return of around 8%. These findings are intuitive, and suggest that sacking a poorly performing manager may be welcomed by the markets as a possible route to better future match performance, while losing a capable manager through resignation, who typically progresses to a superior job, will result in a drop in a club's share price. The paper also reveals that while the impact of managerial departures on stock price volatilities is less clear-cut, speculation in the newspapers is rife in the build-up to such an event