UEFA's Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play Regulations impacted on European club football. After five distinct applications of the break-even requirement, which represents the cornerstone of these regulations, it is time for an assessment. How has the situation in European top-division...

The new UEFA Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play Regulations have encountered stiff criticism. The concerns are that the new regulations may harm football in three different ways: By forgoing the potential benefits from substantial injections of “external” money into payrolls, by...

We examine whether the moment just before the halftime break is a particularly good time to score a goal. Using detailed data from the top five European football leagues between the 2013/14 and 2017/18 seasons, we exploit the quasi-random occurrence of goals scored just before and just after the...

Superstars in European football are exceptionally talented and enjoy celebrity status. While second-tier stars, i.e., players barely below superstar status, lack popularity, their marginal contribution to team performance on the pitch relative to that of superstars is unknown. Relying on...