By Robbie Butler

And just like that, two halves of football turned into four quarters under the guise of ‘player welfare’.

One can only be impressed with football’s governing body for pulling off a fundamental change to football with only the slightest resistance. The idea of moving the game to four quarters was actually floated for the World Cup in the USA in 1994, but was quickly kicked into touch. Football fans would never have accepted this change, even in the home of sports played in quarters rather than halves. Fast forward 32 years and things have changed.

Like many things in football today, I don’t like how the rules of the game are evolving. This appears, on the surface at least, to be less about player welfare (do professional players, used to playing for 45 minutes, really need to rehydrate after just 22 minutes or so of play?) and more about increasing revenues. At least one channel I know of has used the three-minute breaks to show advertisements. Thankfully, the BBC and ITV, the channels I am viewing, have not taken this route. The BBC does not advertise, and ITV has so far resisted the opportunity to do so.

The rule change has also fundamentally altered added time. Every half must now have three minutes of added time at the end. This is unprecedented.

The game is therefore now 96 minutes long, at a minimum. Forty-eight minutes in each half. It begs the question: why not stop the clock for three minutes if the time is fixed and the break is compulsory?

It is the same as half-time. The clock does not continue while the players rest and take instructions. I believe it continues in this case to give the illusion that there is “nothing to see here”.

Unfortunately, there is. The game has changed again. And not, in my opinion, for footballing reasons, but rather to ensure record revenues for yet another World Cup cycle.

Virgil van Djik captured it perfectly this week when he said "Hydration breaks are a bit interesting because I was obviously watching almost all of the games up until today [when he played] and, every time going to a commercial is a bit...not really that I like it. And I think for the neutral watchers on TV, it's also not great. So, if it's really hot, obviously it will be good to put them in, but I think you have to look at it in every game seperately in my opinion."

By Robbie Butler

During the winter I was stuck for reading material. I went on Amazon and found "The Power and the Glory: A New History of the World Cup" by Jonathan Wilson. An accidental find that was brilliant to read. The book was named "Winner of the Sports Book of the Year Award 2026". 

With Mexico vs South Africa at the Estadio Azteca today kicking-off World Cup 2026, it's going to be wall-to-wall football for the next five weeks. Reading this was the perfect set-up for understanding the politics and economics of the game today.

Anyone that thinks the 2026 tournament is somehow different to what went previously should read The Power and the Glory. Every World Cup since 1930 has nearly been more of a political economy than a football. The bidding processes, the television deals, the sponsorship.

Wilson's argument, which he builds up methodically across the book, is that the corruption and the sportswashing we associate with recent tournaments isn't new at all. It's basically been there from the start, just dressed differently each time.

This tournament starting today consists of 48 teams and 104 games, spread across three countries. The scale of it is hard to get your head around. The travel is enormous as we have published on here. From an economics point of view it's a fascinating case study in whether FIFA has traded competitive quality for market reach, and whether the host cities will actually see the returns they were promised. The former is probably "yes" and the latter most certainly "no".

Wilson explores how governments have used the tournament to project legitimacy, like Mussolini's Italy in 1934, and the Argentine junta in 1978, and plenty of others. He argues that the last traditional World Cup was in Mexico 1970. Sponsorship and broadcasting has taken over since. 

The book is also filled with great stories and Pelé, Cruyff and even the Republic of Ireland international team showing up to play Italy in New York in 1994 with the wrong coloured jerseys! The team then waited hours in the airport trying to catch a flight back to basecamp which had been delayed. Roy Keane experienced this as a young player.

Saipan in 2002 seemed all the more understandable...

By John Considine

Bernie Collins is an analyst for Sky’s F1 coverage.  She had previously worked as a strategist for a number of F1 teams and she is the author of How to Win a Grand Prix (written with Maurice Hamilton).  I was reminded of the book when listening to her and the Sky coverage of the qualifying session for the Monaco Grand Prix last Saturday.
 
The first reminder came when she explained to viewers the difficult with using GPS data in Monaco because of the buildings.  The second reminder came when Martin Brundel said of Q3, “this is the most important 15 minutes of the weekend”.  Q3 determines the Top-10 grid positions for the grand prix and a good grid position is more important in Monaco than anywhere else.  The reason grid position is so important in Monaco is because of the difficulty in overtaking.
 
The Monaco Grand Prix features repeatedly in How to Win a Grand Prix because it is an outlier.  Collins tells us that it is the race where track position is all important.  At the other end of the spectrum is Bahrain where overtaking is relatively easy.
 
But it is her explanation of a different spectrum that rang a bell with the educator in me.  She starts Chapter 15 with the sentence “The tyre model is the foundation for all strategy.”  The first thing they do is to work out the lap time if there was only one car on the track.  Their car.  I remember my delight in reading it.  Here in the “real-world”, with millions of euro/dollars in play, is somebody considering an unrealistic hypothetical situation.  The ends of a spectrum can be useful for helping us think about things.  It is a reason for studying market structure models like monopoly and perfect competition.  Everyone knows that there is no competition in what is called perfect competition and that it probably doesn't exist in the “real world”.  But if it can help our thinking then it is useful.  Why would anyone want to know the fastest lap time for only one car?  If there was only one car then one would drive slowly to win the race and reduce the possibility of a crash.  They do it to establish a limiting case.  It helps their thinking.

What did Collins do as a strategist after establishing the fastest lap time with only one car?  She examined what would be the time with all the cars on the track.  Having all the cars on the track during a Grand Prix is rare enough.  One car was gone on the first lap in Monaco last Sunday.  Yet, the second step was to establish the lap times with all the cars on the track.  They do this to help them think about what might normally happen.

Then there were estimates of the lap times needed to ensure survival in Q1 and Q2 when a quarter of the cars are eliminated at each stage.
 
Then the weather conditions, particularly rain and temperature, need to be included.
 
The layers of complication are added and added.  Including guessing as to what the other teams might be doing.  One needs to read the book to appreciate the complexity.  Yet, they started by establishing the lap times with one car on the track and followed it with establishing a time when all the cars were on the track.  It is not a textbook but it might help some to appreciate why market structure with many competitors or one “competitor” are studied.

By John Considine

This week the LA Rams traded for Myles Garrett.  In return for his services they gave the Cleveland Browns a bunch of draft picks plus Jared Verse.  This seems to be a deliberate strategy on the part of the Rams (as suggested previously here on this site).  The Rams seem happy to trade away "potential" for "proven" - although Verse was defensive rookie of the year.  The Rams previously did something similar for Matthew Stafford with glittering success.  Stafford is the reigning MVP and there was some questioning of the Rams when they selected a quarterback with their first round draft pick this year.  The move for Garrett seems to be more consistent with their approach to draft picks over the last decade.  It makes me wonder if the Rams are taking lessons, directly or indirectly, from the Nobel Laureate Richard Thaler.

Thaler devotes a chapter in Misbehaving: The Making of Behavior Economics to, what he sees as, systematic errors in decision making in the NFL.  His main focus is on the way early draft picks are overvalued. This is primarily based on a statistical analysis of the large number of decisions in his sample.  However, he does provide a case study of the Washington franchise and their inability to follow they advice that he was directly providing.  The LA Rams seem to be following an alternative approach.

By Daragh O'Leary

​As an Arsenal supporter who grew up during the Arsene Wegner era, I was always confused about the famous chant 1-nil-to-the-Arsenal. Wegner’s style of football was a very expansive and fluid way to play the game which resulted in great wins for the Gunners. In his later years, his approach remained somewhat the same in intention but became associated with physically weak players. This meant Arsenal were often bullied and fell short of victory. 

Accordingly, I wasn’t sure why Arsenal were ever associated with the famous chant that spoke of tight and unattractive victories because for as long as I could remember they either won beautifully or completely capitulated.

Of course, the famous chant harks back to a time of Arsenal’s history where they were led to success by George Graham who embraced a very defensive and pragmatic style of football. While I wasn’t around for this period, it’s safe to say I have become somewhat accustomed to this style of football throughout the last 9 months.

A frequent critique of Arsenal this season has been that they are an unattractive side to watch. I cannot dispute this. A lot of their games have been won by very tight margins, and this has led to more 1 nil victories than they have managed in previous seasons.

Arsenal have managed more victories this year which ended 1 nil (or nil 1) than they have in previous seasons where they finished second.

Furthermore, this year they managed as many 1 nil wins in the first half of the season as they did in the second half of the season (4) - with 3 of these coming in the final 4 games which led to the title. This is in stark contrast to the last two seasons where they managed just one 1 nil victory in their final 5 games and the 2023 season where they managed no 1 nil wins in their last five games.
​
As an Arsenal fan, I’m not quite sure how I feel about this. The presence of more 1 nil wins has certainly meant that I have had to endure a lot of matches that I didn’t enjoy watching. However, in previous seasons the absence of those 1 nil victories was associated with capitulation and key losses which ultimately resulted in no league title. Perhaps 1 nil wins late on in the season can be considered some kind of a proxy for grit or bottle. For my own sake I hope next year the Gunners can try to increase their number of 2 nil wins.

By John Considine

In eight days from now Arsenal will play in the UEFA Champions League final.  Twenty years ago Arsenal played their last final against Barcelona.  The final did not go to a penalty shootout.  If it had then one team would have an economist's analysis in their back pocket.  In 2006 Ignacio Palacios-Huerta was making a name for himself by examining data on penalty kicks.  As a scientist he was using data to test game theory.  As a potential advisor to a football team he was advocating a course of action for individual players.  Unfortunately for economists his ideas were not tested in the heat of the 2006 competition.

That changed two years later.  In 2008 he prepared a report for Chelsea.  That UEFA final between Chelsea and Manchester United did go to a penalty shootout.  As he explains in his TEDx talk, his advice nearly helped Chelsea win that title.

He later went on to write Beautiful Game Theory: How soccer can help economics.  Every sportsperson studying economics should read it.  Palacios-Huerta see economics as an approach rather than a subject matter.  Penalty kicks are the subject matter.  They provide the data for the questions this economist is seeking to answer, e.g. do humans behave as if they understand the complexity of strategy?  An understated feature of the book is the way it takes the reader through the 21st century economics approach to such matters.

The book starts with explaining the data collection and analysis process.  Palacios-Huerta explains how he uses data from the natural experiments that occurred in various soccer leagues.  He then explains how he replicated these natural experiments in a labratory setting with footballers.  Very few pieces of economic research are as robust.  The book format allows him to explain the difficulties of going from statistical averages to the analysis of the specific individual.  It is wonderfully illustrated by stories about Lionel Messi and Eric Cantona.

This thouroughness is continued in the book.  There is a chapter dedicated to the biological machinery and the neuroscience that is influencing economics.  A number of chapters dedicated to the psychological influences in behavioural economics.  Provided the student of economics likes soccer, and is prepared to work through some mathematics, it is one of the best introduction to economics they will find.

By Robbie Butler

Last night’s Europa League final was not much of a contest. Aston Villa comfortably beat German side Freiburg 3-0 in Istanbul to become the sixth English side to win the competition. In the closing minutes, I remarked to friends that it is rare to win a major final so easily. As the clock ran into the 89th minute, I predicted two minutes of additional time. I was close – it was just one.

One minute of added time in a second half that had a goal, a caution, and ten substitutions. The substitutions alone stopped play for at least two minutes, and probably more. Why so little additional time? The scoreline, I suspect. 

​The same could be asked of the 2025 Champions League final. Zero minutes added at the end of the second half. The score: 5-0 to PSG.Referees are clearly influenced by the scoreline. Our recent paper in the Journal of Sports Economics validates this position. Had Aston Villa led 1-0 last night, my bet is that, under an identical second half (assuming no first-half goals), the fourth official would have added five or more minutes.

Why should a team winning 1-0 have to play more additional time than if they are winning 3-0? If referees are displaying compensation tendencies here, where else does this extend? Cautions, serious foul play, penalty decisions?
It is human nature to feel empathy towards losing teams. Adding just one minute when a team is losing by three goals in a major European final may feel like kindness or sympathy. It shouldn’t. It is not the job of the timekeeper to be empathetic towards the loser. Their job is to apply the rules and laws of the game.

By John Considine

Arsenal are on the verge of their first title since 2004.  The achievement is not exactly a Leicester City but it is surely a good news story for the game. However, there are some grumblings that they rely too much on set-pieces for their goals.  On Sunday, two hurling teams shared 53 scores totalling to 61 points.  At halftime the analysts waxed lyrical about the fact that so many of the scores came from play.  It speaks to a frequent complaint that hurling is turning into a free-taking competition.  Approximately 20% of the scores between Limerick and Waterford on Sunday came from free-shots.  Thirty percent (30%) is the current average for such games.

Last year, Tipperary won the All-Ireland title after playing seven games.  Over those seven games they averaged 30% from frees.  Thirty-five years earlier I was on a team that took five games to win the 1990 title.  We got 8% of our scores from frees.  While most would prefer a smaller proportion of scores to come from frees, most would also agree that the game in 2026 is in a better place.

By Robbie Butler

In recent days, there has been speculation that Crystal Palace could financially benefit from a final day loss away to Arsenal. The source of this was based on the suggested nature of Eberechi Eze's contract, having joined the Gunners in August 2025 for an initial fee of £60 million. It is believed that £7.5 million in potential add-ons was included as part of a four-year deal with his new club.

Crucially, it is now believed that these add-ons do not include additional income for Crystal Palace if Eze's current club Arsenal win the league. Why? Because Arsenal's final league game of the season is away to Crystal Palace. Such a scenario, even if ignored and not acting as any perverse incentive to perform, would not be a good look for the game.

This begs the question of whether such add-ons should be permitted at all. One can reasonably assume that individual performance metrics, such as goals scored, number of assists, and so on, are reasonable to include. The chances of unintended consequences, while possible, remain limited, as these metrics are player-related only.

The introduction of team performance metrics into the contract of an individual player is a different matter. A player does not, in theory, have to play for team performance bonuses to be met. If a player signs for a new club and the buying club agrees to pay the selling club an additional sum should they win a trophy or qualify for European competition, these targets may be achieved entirely independent of the contribution of the player signed.

Such scenarios could give rise to a range of perverse incentives that alter the pay-offs from winning, or indeed losing, a game. It should never be the case that losing is more financially rewarding than winning.

By David Butler

A few weeks back Mikey Moore was named SPL young player of the year. His loan from Tottenham ought to be deemed successful. But is he an excpetion? In a new working paper with collegues in Ireland and the UK, we consider how the loan process affects later career pay of footballers. 

Loan moves are a staple of football for a long time now. Of course, the motivation for them and the loan/contract strcuture vary in type. For example, young players heading out to lower tiers to get first-team minutes or established players moving to new clubs on a trial basis. At times we see big-money flops being farmed out to revive their career. On the surface, it looks like a sensible arrangement for everyone involved, but our research suggests that for players, their may be an inter temprial cost of going on loan.

We use data for over 1,000 players in the English Premier League and Serie A between 2021 and 2025, and find that loan moves are consistently associated with lower wages. There is no evidence anywhere in the data that loans generate a later wage premium. Every type of loan, in both leagues, is either associated with a penalty or makes no difference at all.

We try to get at the idea of differnt loan motivations and find that not all loans are equal. The largest wage penalties attach to straight developmental loans, which see's young (u-21) players sent out with no purchase clause attached. Loans with a purchase clause attached to them, where the receiving club has an option to make the move permanent, carry smaller penalties. What about loans with an obligation to buy? Here we find no significant pay penalty at all.  This makes sense, as these arrangements are effectively staged transfers, and the wage already reflects where the player is going rather than where they came from.

Perhaps the most intersting finding in the research is the persistent effect of prior loan spells.  We find that for every additional loan a player has taken in their career, their wage is approximately 4% lower.  The labour market appears to be reading into a history of repeated loaning. When a player keeps getting moved on temporarily rather than integrated or sold permanently, its seems the market takes note.

The findings do differ across leagues. In the EPL, loans of any kind carry a significant wage penalty. Italy tells a different story entirely. In Serie A, only developmental straight loans attract a pay penalty. Every other loan type is statistically indistinguishable from non-loan wages. We think this is consistent with Italy's long-established 'loan culture'  where temporary moves of experienced players are routine.