A conceptual model to measure football player's market value. A proposal by means of an analytic hierarchy process

Abstract

The aim of this article is to propose a conceptual model to estimate football players' market value, particularly in the position of forward. The model has been constructed by means of an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the participation of 26 football experts from the Spanish Leagues. The model is composed of three kinds of primary attributes: sports variables, personal skills variables and professional variables. Within each primary attribute, there are a range of 6-10 variables whose weights have been calculated thanks to the football experts' participation. The main results show that the sport variable is the most important factor to determine the market value, closely followed by personal skills. Furthermore, goals per match, competitiveness and contract duration are the most important directly observed variables to explain the forwards' market value. Notwithstanding, there are other tangible and non-tangible factors that we should consider in order to improve the valuation accuracy.