Geography of football performance in Spain: the influence of population density

Abstract

This article scrutinizes the geographical distribution of football success in Spain between the 1959-60 and 2019-2020 seasons. The football success of a given territory is measured by calculating the rankings obtained by its football team (or teams) at the end of each season in the first and second divisions either during the period under consideration or within different time periods. The review of the most significant literature about the geography of football success underpins our hypothesis that territorial football success is closely dependent on socio-economic dynamism at the local-regional scale. Population density is thus used to test this hypothesis by means of statistical techniques and spatial analysis. The results confirm that demographic density predicts local and provincial football success, which is concentrated in the region of Madrid, the Mediterranean coastline between Barcelona and Valencia, the eastern Cantabrian provinces, and western Andalusia. However, significant positive (higher than expected success) and negative (lower than expected success) deviations have been detected. Such deviations can only be accounted for through in-depth qualitative analyses drawing on those institutional and sociological factors that underlie the success or failure of certain provinces and clubs.