European football clubs and their finances. A systematic literature review

Abstract

The purpose of this systematic literature review is to provide the state of the art, trends and thematic features in the field of accounting and finances of football teams applying the PRISMA guidelines. Seventy-five studies published after the Bosman Act (1995) were included from the most relevant databases: WoS and Scopus. The lines of research included in the analysis were financial performance, sport performance and legislative performance. The synthesis of studies revealed that the scientific output has evolved over time and changes have been detected both on a sporting and scientific level with the introduction of the Financial Fair Play (2012), which is changing the business model of the football industry towards more efficient financial and accounting decision making, which might help the achievement of sporting objectives. Useful policy conclusions such as valuation of intangibles, influence of results on clubs’ share prices and directions for future research on football finance are also included in the paper.