by Declan Jordan

The debate on immigration that has seemed to dominate British politics recently also has its echoes in football discussions. I have even in Ireland heard how there are too many foreign players in the English game. When I point out that Irish players are also foreign in the English game this prompts an exception. Even at the top of the English game the argument for limiting the number of foreign players seems to be getting traction - despite the lack of evidence and faulty logic. 

The emphasis in English commentary is on the number of players immigrating into the Premier League. This is probably because so few English players emigrate to ply their trade in foreign leagues. So while the argument goes that it may be bad for the English national side to have so many foreign players blocking chances for local players to progress, there is a corollary there that the English national team may benefit from English players going to play in other leagues.

I was pleased to come across a paper in the area in Applied Economics Letters co-authored by Grant Allan and John Moffatt from Strathclyde and Durham respectively. Grant is a colleague of mine in the Regional Science Association so we have even more to discuss at our annual conferences.

The implication of the study for English football is to embrace the 'other' aspect of openness of international labour markets by encouraging English footballers to play abroad, broadening their experience and developing skills and awareness. The paper considers two phenomena - muscle drain (the loss of players to foreign leagues) and brain gain (the hiring of foreign managers to manage the national side). The paper considers the effect of these two issues on national team performance.

The paper finds, using data on national team ranking, league standing and numbers of foreign-based players and imported managers, that the 'player export' variable is robustly positive and significant, suggesting that having players playing abroad has a beneficial effect on the national team ranking. The 'manager import' variable however is negative, suggesting that there may be cultural differences between players and managers that may be difficult to surmount.

It's interesting to consider these findings in the context of performances at this year's World Cup in Brazil. In their squad England had one foreign based player - Fraser Forster the third choice goalkeeper who plays with Celtic in Scotland. Of the semi-finalists, Brazil had 19 players out of 23 playing outside Brazil, Germany had 7 playing abroad (in England, Italy and Spain), Argentina had 20 playing abroad and the Netherlands had 13 playing abroad. Of the other teams in their group, the number of domestic players in each squad were 20 for Italy, 10 for Costa Rica, and 1 for Uruguay. The latter two qualified for the quarter final. This is an interesting site for data on this. 

While England had an English manager at a World Cup for the first time since 1998 it wasn't enough to overcome the 'player export' variable. Maybe it's worth noting that that the semi-finalists all had domestic managers too.

by Declan Jordan

There is a sizeable literature on the economic impacts of major sporting events. Robbie Butler has shown in previous posts such as here and here that the evidence suggests that hosting major sports events, such as the World Cup and the Olympics, rarely pay for themselves financially.

There is an interesting contribution to the literature on the economic effects of hosting major events in the latest issue of Kyklos. An article by two Turkish economists, Veysel Avsar and Umut Unal, looks at the effects on trade between host and participating countries at FIFA World Cups. The article can be accessed here, though there is open access earlier version on SSRN here.

The paper finds strong evidence for a trading effect of the World Cup using bilateral trade data for 196 countries between 1950 and 2006. Pointing to the showcase effect of hosting the World Cup and the opportunities it provides for developing networks and trade channels, the paper finds that the World Cup significantly increases exports from participant countries to host countries and that trade is higher for host participant pairs compared to other country pairs. The authors find that the effects are decreasing over time. A personal view is that this may reflect the diminishing importance of showcase effects as the cost of information and communication diminishes in an increasingly digital society.

The paper is an interesting contribution to the literature and points to economic effects that may be under-appreciated or overlooked in the studies of big event impact analysis.

by Declan Jordan

For me one of the stars of the World Cup this year is sports journalist Ken Early who has been filing really enjoyable and insightful articles for the Irish Times and contributing to the Second Captains online radio show. One of his articles on the dramatic humiliation of Brazil at the hands of Germany referred to the 'export' of Brazilian football players at very young ages. He argues that has led to Brazilian football losing its sense of identity.

Of course the causes of the decline and fall of Brazilian football are varied and multifaceted - some being proximate causes (David Luiz's positioning inability) and some long-term (the pile 'em high approach referred to in the same article by Early). The exodus of Brazilian talent prompted me to consider the experiences of other countries to see if there is something unique about the Brazilian experience. Perhaps the idea struck a chord because in Ireland we have a similar problem of 'talent drain' and so the only thing we have in common with Brazil is not getting a hammering at home from Germany in this World Cup competition.

The blog has seen posts recently on the 'granny rule' and the effects of previous generations' migration on international football teams' performances. Perhaps a related issue is the immigration of young professional footballers and the effect that might have on a national team's identity and performance.

I looked at the starting 11 of the four semi-finalists (Brazil, Germany, Argentina and the Netherlands). The experience of the players in terms of their migration patterns are quite striking. Each country has a strong domestic league.

In Brazil's case, as Ken Early pointed out, most of the players left Brazil at a young age after relatively few appearances in the Brazilian league. The most extreme case is Hulk who played only once for Vitoria before leaving at 19, initially to Japan. Of the 11 starters only Fred plays in Brazil currently, though he also left Brazil when he was 22 after 69 league appearances. On average players left Brazil at 21 years old and having made 51.5 appearances in domestic football.

The German experience is remarkably different. Of their 11 starters, 8 have never played club football outside Germany (and Miroslav Klose is one of the three having joined Lazio at 33 years of age in 2011). The other 2, Khedira and Ozil, left Germany at 22 and 23 respectively but both had made over 100 Bundesliga appearances at that stage. 

The comparison between the South American and European participants in the other semi-final is similar. All of the Argentinian players play outside their native country. The average age when they left is 20 and the average number of appearances before they emigrated is 52.5 (very similar to the Brazilian statistics). Even excluding Lionel Messi (who moved to Barcelona at 13) the average age only rises to 20.5 and the appearances to 57. Enzo Perez is a bit of an exception among the team. The Benfica player played 103 matches in Argentina before his move to Portugal.

Six of the Dutch players play abroad, with the other 5 never having played outside the Netherlands. However, the average age of the 6 when they left the Netherlands is 23 and the average number of appearances before leaving is 132. For example, Dirk Kuyt made 261 appearances for Utrecht and Feyenoord before joining Liverpool in 2006 and Ron Vlaar made 142 appearances for AZ 67 and Feyenoord before joining Aston Villa. The table shows the comparison between each country.

It's clear that while Brazil suffer from an exodus of players from their domestic leagues (mostly to European leagues) and this may damage the identity of the team with its fans, it is not a problem unique to them. This is probably a function of the money in European football relative to South America (and other continents). 

There are important implications in this for Brazilian attempts to address its football decline. After the abysmal performance of Germany in Euro 2000 the football association and clubs revamped football structures and player development and the fruits of that are seen now (at both national and club levels). The experience of player exodus poses the difficulty for Brazil that while it can enhance player development structures this is likely to simply make those players even more attractive to European clubs. Brazil needs to address player development (avoiding the 'law of numbers' approach referred to by Ken Early) but also address the talent drain.

By David Butler

Over June and July RTE, Ireland's national television and radio broadcaster, will beam images from World Cup 2014 in Brazil to T.V sets throughout the Irish state. For many sports enthusiasts this will bring great satisfaction. For the non-football fan however, what appears to be wall to wall football coverage, can test one's mental endurance.

At the start of the Premier League last  year I calculated how much football could be watched early in the season. Below is the math and some RTE entertainment comparisons to put into context the extent of World Cup coverage on RTE relative to a years worth of other T.V entertainment.

A dye in the wool football fan can view 5040 minutes of football action on RTE over the month (5 group games across the eight groups, as the last two kick off together, and 16 post group ties). This figure is a minimum and doesn't take into account opening/closing ceremonies, added time, extra time, highlight shows, the musings of any pundit or the superb Après Match.

To put this number (5040) in perspective, the 2012 season of the Australian soap Home and Away aired by RTE lasted 4950 minutes, that's 225 episodes that ran for 22 minutes each. In terms of just the 90 minutes of football, if one was to watch the entire World Cup on RTE it would be similar to watching just over an entire season of Home and Away in one month.

Season 51 of the Late Late Show, Ireland's Premier National talk show, lasted 4440 minutes, that's 37 episodes lasting 120 minutes each. Again, spending this time with Ryan Tubridy is not far off the extent of World Cup footage on RTE. 

In terms of other popular drama and entertainment shows on RTE, watching the entire World Cup would equate to viewing about 229 episodes of The Big Bang Theory, about 8 seasons of Celebratory Masterchef and would be close to seeing Dermot and his team renovate nearly 100 houses in Room to Improve!

Of course, the World Cup only happens every 4 years, so perhaps we should only think of a quarter of this viewing time or alternatively we could appreciate that soap fans just smooth their consumption and shouldn't be too frustrated. For me however these stats (especially the Home and Away one!) put into perspective what those who have no preference for football have to endure for June and July of 2014.

By Robbie Butler

A number of weeks back we did a selection of sports economics and Simpsons pieces to coincide with the launch of Homer Economicus: The Simpsons and Economics. Last week’s Sunday Times report on the alleged corruption surrounding Qatar’s successful 2022 World Cup bid gives us more ammunition. The newspaper claims that large sums of money were passed between those behind the Qatar bid and FIFA representatives with voting privileges. At the centre of the allegations is former FIFA's executive committee member Mohamed bin Hammam. The Qatari national was supposedly a key figure in securing the 2022 World Cup. However, the Sunday Times reports that leaked email documents prove bin Hammam paid members of other nations' Football Associations prior to the 2022 FIFA World Cup bid. FIFA’s main sponsors (such as adidas and Sony) are now publically calling for an investigation into the matter. 

This corruption story comes hot on the heels of another. A recent international friendly between Scotland and Nigeria at Fulham’s Craven Cottage was supposedly targeted by match-fixers. These allegations of fraud in the “beautiful game’ were so serious that the Scottish Football Association contacted the National Crime Agency to investigate the matter.

In March of this year, Fox aired You Don't Have to Live Like a Referee¸ the 16th episode of the 25th season of The Simpsons. The plot goes as follows. Following Lisa’s success in a school ‘hero’ competition, a speech she gives during the event goes viral, the result of which is Homer being asked to referee games during the World Cup in Brazil by the Executive Vice President of the fictitious World Football Federation (WFF). The VP satirically says to Homer “Mr. Simpson, please help us. The rot is everywhere. In fact, I see that eh, I myself am about to be arrested for corruption”, before being led away in handcuffs.

Following an excellent refereeing performance in an opening round match between Brazil and Luxembourg, Homer becomes the target of match-fixers. He is greeted by men who offer him a briefcase full of cash. Homer refuses the bribe and vows to be an honest referee despite the protests of the match-fixers. However, upon hearing that he is in fact not Lisa’s ‘hero’, he becomes depressed and decides to drink his problems away. Devastated by Lisa’s ‘betrayal’ he decides to accept a bride on the World Cup final between Brazil and Germany. Homer is offered $1 million so that Brazil will win the World Cup. Upon overhearing this conversation Lisa begs Homer not to take the bribe.  

During the game, a Brazilian by the name of El Divo dribbles into the penalty area before diving. Homer true to his morals however, does not award the penalty. Germany go on to win the match 2-0 and lift the World Cup.

While most of us strongly doubt the actual World Cup final will be the victim of match fixing, this Simpsons episode is a timely reminder of the dangers posed by match-fixers. The buildup to Brazil has been marred by street protests, unfinished stadia and alleged corruption at the highest level of the game. Above all things let’s hope the football is clean. Afterall that’s why we watch.

by Sean O'Connor

With the World Cup drawing ever closer, much of the build up to Brazil has been dominated by how teams will cope with the intense heat. This has become such an issue that FIFA have sanctioned water breaks throughout games in order to allow players some relief from the anticipated searing heat. A paper written by Maughan et al. (2010), titled “Living training and playing in the heat: challenges to the football player and strategies for coping with environmental extremes.” noted how football played in high temperatures can not only effect player performance but prior acclimatization can also lessen the impact.

However, this raises the question, what effect can temperatures have on a nation’s chances of lifting the World Cup? Do countries of warmer climates produce more winners? In a previous post on this blog, David Butler considered the relationship between geography and World Cup success. An important aspect that makes geography important is the climate.

The higher the temperature the more difficult even the simplest of tasks can become for even the most gifted players. So surely those who are used to a warmer climate should cope more favourably in these conditions than those who are not? Using average annual temperature data, I’ll attempt to address whether on average warmer countries produce more World Cup winners than colder ones.

As the data shows, on average nations who experience a warmer climate tend to adapt much better to playing in colder conditions than colder nations adapting to warmer ones. Of the nineteen World Cups played, only on four occasions has a country of a colder climate come to a warmer one and tasted glory (1950: Uruguay, 1982: Italy, 1990: West Germany, 2010: Spain). Even these differences, in playing in a hotter climate are minimal and for the last World Cup, the all European clash between Spain and Holland took place in South Africa’s winter period (June and July temp circa 11ºC).

Of course if only climate mattered, we could expect World Cup winners from among the Middle Eastern and African nations given their high temperatures. Obviously talent still plays a key role, given that the strongest teams still stand the best chance of making finals. However, it appears that strong nations with warm climates tend to stand a much better chance of success in Brazil e.g. Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay than their cooler counterparts, Germany, Spain, Italy etc. 

 By David Butler

A  few weeks back Robbie Butler questioned how monotonous the Champions League group stages had become  due to the dominance of elite European teams. Interestingly he found that "while six or more of the top seeds have qualified from Pot 1, the likelihood of teams qualifying (for the last 32 of the Champions League) from Pots 3 and 4 appears to be improving".

Is the same true for the World Cup?  With the draw for the group stages for Brazil due to take place today in Costa do Sauipe, I decided to investigate the likelihood of lower seeded teams, out of the 32 in attendance, qualifying for the last 16 of the competition.
 
While we can't categorise international teams by 'pots' for the World Cup as they are  segregated based on a mixture of geography and seeding (an interesting case actually happened in World Cup 2006 where a special pot contained Serbia and Montenegro to ensure that no group contained three European teams), we can rank the 32 teams according to their relative standings in the competition based on their FIFA ranking.

I've looked at the last 4 world cups (since 1998 it became a 32 team competition). 4 teams qualified from the bottom half of the relative ranking in both 1998 and 2002, or what could be construed as 'the real pot 'C' and 'D'' if we are to purely use and trust FIFA rankings. This increased to 5 teams coming from the bottom 16 in both 2006 and 2010. The 2002 statistic may however be misleading as Japan and South Korea hosted the competition and, of course, had the benefit of home advantage.

So the group stages may not be a formality and with 15% of the 128 places on offer over the last 4 world cups going to teams on the lower end of the relative rankings, it won't surprise me if there is several surprises awaiting top seeded team in the group stage in Brazil.

by Declan Jordan

The nature of making predictions is that when they turn out to be wide of the mark they can be dragged up again and again. I am sure Pele is very tired of being reminded how, in 1977, he predicted an African world cup winner by 2000. The best that African teams have managed is reaching the quarter finals (Cameroon in 1990, Senegal in 2002 and Ghana in 2010).

There is of course a danger in discussing how a continent performs since there is just as much variation in the more successful continents than there are in the less successful ones. Also, it has to be remembered just how difficult (and rare) to win a World Cup. 8 different nations have won the World Cup (3 from South America and 5 from Europe). To put this in context, 166 countries entered qualification for Brazil 2014.

African football continues to be looked down on, despite some of the top players in world football hailing from Africa. Giovanni Trappatoni suggested recently that his next role after the Ireland job may be in Africa. He said he is "intrigued by Africa, who still have tactical naivete". (Perhaps I am still upset that he believes after four years in charge of Ireland he thinks we don't have our own league). By definition stereotypes are hard to change and I believe this is even stronger in sport.

So perhaps it's worth considering the performance of African countries from a different perspective. That there are fewer African teams reaching the later stages of the World Cup may be due to them having fewer teams entering the World Cup finals. In the four tournaments since 1998 there have been 5 African qualifiers (in 2010 there were 6 because South Africa were hosts). Prior to that there were 3 in 1994, 2 in the three tournaments to 1990 and 1 in the three tournaments in the 1970s. Apart from an appearance by Egypt in 1934 there were no African participants prior to 1970.

In next year's finals in Brazil there will be 5 African nations from 52 qualifiers, while Europe will have 13 from 53 qualifiers. Asia will have 4 from 43 qualifiers (presuming Uruguay beat Jordan), North, Central America and the Caribbean will have 4 from 35 (assuming Mexico beat New Zealand) and finally South America will have 5 from 9 (plus the hosts Brazil making it 6 from 10).

Africa, despite having more than 5 times as many nations, have the same number of qualifiers as South America.


Africa's record at World Cup finals is not as poor as popular myth may suggest. With a similar representation as South America their teams do relatively well. Brazil and Argentina fly the flag for South America and without them the record for South American since the 1980s is not strong. Since 1986 at least one African nation has qualified from the pool stages and as noted earlier 3 have qualified for the quarter finals. In the same period 4 different South American nations have qualified for quarter finals. Excluding Brazil and Argentina, only Paraguay and Uruguay have reached the last 8 since 1986, and both of those in the most recent World Cup in South Africa 2010. 

If South America's high proportion of finals places if based on FIFA ranking then there is something of a circular logic, as rankings are boosted by performances against other higher ranked teams. Appearing at the World Cup final provides further boost to rankings. The table below however shows the number of nations from Africa and South America in the top 30 FIFA ranking spots each December since 1993 (the 2013 figure is for October).

The graph shows that there is a high proportion of the South American teams in the top 30 (sometimes over half). But in absolute terms the African performance compares very well. When considering that these teams rarely play high ranked nations competitively (at World Cup finals mostly) the performance is even more significant,

The division of FIFA into separate federations creates a situation where each federation looks to protect their own and this can mean persistent under or over representation by nations in those federations. In the current qualification Australia moved from Oceania to Asia because the Oceania representatives must go into a play-off with the fifth South American nation and in a two-legged tie this is a big ask for a nation from Oceania.

A rebalancing of the representation of each federation may be warranted to encourage nations in football's developing regions. Perhaps adding South America to Central, North American and Caribbean. However, politics will dominate and there is likely to be conflicting national, federation and FIFA objectives. 

by Declan Jordan

France have lodged a complaint this week with FIFA about  the 'unfair' seeding system on which the draw for the play-offs for the European World Cup qualifiers is based, Irish football supporters with sympathy for the French in a row over a World Cup playoff will be as rare as hen's teeth. In any event, France are not complaining about the use of seeding per se but that countries in smaller groups have fewer opportunities to earn ranking points. However, why seeding is used at all for play-off games has to be questioned.

While most of the attention of those around me were on the final games in the European groups for next year's World Cup, my focus has been the David and Goliath struggle between Ethiopia and Nigeria. This is in the play-off for the five African qualifiers for Brazil 2014. The African qualifiers are quite drawn out affairs. (It makes a county GAA championship look straightforward). 

52 nations started out on the road to qualification in November 2011. The lowest ranked 24 countries were drawn to play on a home and away basis with the winning 12 joining the higher ranked 28 in 10 groups of 4 teams. The winners of those 10 groups were drawn on a home and away basis with the five winners taking the planes to Brazil. The draw for the initial two-legged play-off was seeded based on FIFA rankings. The draw for the groups was also seeded and the draw for the final play-offs were also seeded based on FIFA rankings. FIFA rankings are very important and tend to favour the more successful nations heavily.

The experience of the Ethiopian team in this qualification campaign poses an interesting case for the use of seeding in tournaments, and in particular for play-off places. The FIFA rankings in July 2011 were used to identify the lowest ranked 24 teams for the initial playoffs. Ethiopia were in that group and had to play Somalia for a place in the group stages. (Somalia's campaign for the 2014 World Cup involved two games on the 12th and 16th of November 2011). Ethiopia were then drawn as fourth seeds in a group with South Africa, Botswana and Central African Republic. They topped that group despite having 3 points deducted for fielding an ineligible player against Botswana. Their reward for topping that group was to be drawn against current African champions Nigeria in a two-legged play-off. And here is the rub, should nations that finish on top (or second) in a group that was based on seeding be subsequently seeded in a play-off between all the other top placed teams? Does there come a point when seeding becomes more of a restrictive practice and a barrier to competitive balance than an attempt to ensure the best teams remain in a tournament?

There are several reasons why sports bodies use seeding. It rewards past performance (though in some sports, including the "sport" of horse-racing, organisers penalise past performance by handicapping, as they do in golf). Also, it ensures the best teams or players are more likely to be kept apart until later in a tournament which may increase interest from spectators (and associated revenue).

If a sports body is to use seeding then how it implements it has (by definition) a critical impact on the likely outcome of the games and tournament. So what system balances the needs of the sports body for big games and the need to ensure tournaments are decided on merit. I'd argue that the seedings should be based on the most up-to-date information about teams or participants and this would mean, where possible, seeding based on performance within the tournament.

However, it has to be remembered that FIFA rankings are based on performances over 4 years. So a team like Ethiopia that emerges to challenge the big guns of African football will find it harder to break through due to the use of seeding based on performances several years ago (which are heavily weighted in favour of those teams that qualified for the last World Cup finals). Based on the results from last weekend's play-offs, it is likely that Africa will have the same five representatives in Brazil 2014 as they had in Germany in 2010 (Cameron, Nigeria, Cote D'Ivoire, Algeria and Ghana).

At the start of a tournament, for example a World Cup qualifying campaign, it is reasonable for the organisers to use performance in previous tournaments to seed players or teams. This is used in tennis, football, rugby and many other sports. However, once a tournament is under way the organisers have more up-to-date information on which to base seeding in later rounds. Perhaps football could learn from other sports. For example in the Heineken Cup the quarter final draw is not based on historical rankings (which are used to allocate teams in the group stages) but rather the teams' performances in the group stages determine the seeding of the quarter final draw. The team with the best points total in the groups is drawn against the qualifying team with the worst performance. And 2nd, 3rd and 4th are drawn against 7th, 6th and 5th respectively. This creates an incentive for every game because even teams that have won their group will want to continue winning to ensure they get as good a draw (and a home quarter final) in the next round.

Other examples include athletics and swimming where lane allocation (an important influence on the race outcome) is based on finishing times in the heats, rather than whether a particular sprinter or swimmer is the gold medallist from the last Olympics. These have the added benefit of ensuring every heat is a meaningful race in itself.

If the African Football Federation (CAF) had used the same system as the Heineken Cup for example the play-off draw would have pitted Ethiopia (7th best finishers - though they would have been 2nd best without the points deduction) against Cote D'Ivoire. Interestingly, Nigeria would have been ranked 9th and would have faced Ghana (who demolished Egypt 6-1 this week) while African Nations Cup runners up Burkina Faso would have been the worst placed team and played Egypt. It would also have meant that top ranked teams in the group would not just be targeting a top place within their group but also fighting for every point and extra goal difference right down to the final match to ensure a better draw in the final round.

Ethiopia were unlucky to lose to a last minute penalty in Addis Ababa last weekend and so next month will have a tough task in the return leg in Calabar. But it seems for the developing football nations in Africa this is par for the course,