By David Butler

Last week Matt Cooper spoke about the possibility of allowing professional boxers compete in the Rio Olympics on his talk show the Last Word. The guests considered the merits of the AIBA’s proposal and the implications for Ireland. The aim is to abolish rules that stops boxers with 15 or more paid bouts from competing at the Olympics. The Independent newspaper carried the story and details last Wednesday. 

While Ireland’s Katie Taylor said the new rules would not alter her preparation, the re-design could spell trouble for Ireland’s medal chances at Rio. 57% of our Olympic medals have come from boxing – two gold’s, five silvers and nine bronze. The table shows Ireland's medal tally at the Olympic games.  

While nothing would be stopping Irish professional boxers from competing for a gold, something tells me that our share of boxing medals may not be as high if the proposal is ratified.You would have to worry for the amateurs, surely Wladimir Klitschko would like to add more Olympic golds to his CV?

By Robbie Butler

Following the normal winter break, this week's Arsenal-Barcelona match felt like a long overdue reintroduction to the Champions League. The tie is now probably over following Barcelona’s 2-0 win in London. On the evidence, La Liga generally appears to be ahead of the English Premier League.

This is a far cry from the years 2005 to 2012 when an English club appeared in seven out of eight Champions League finals, emerging as winners on three occasions. The 2008 final was even consisting of two Premier League clubs, with Manchester United defeating Chelsea on penalties.

What’s interesting about the current Arsenal-Barcelona duel is that it is another repeat of the 2006 Final in Paris. Arsenal, sometimes referred to a diet-Barcelona or Barcelona-light, were less than fifteen minutes away from winning the competition that year. This was despite playing from the 18th minute onwards with just ten men. The 61st minute introduction of former Celtic star Henrik Larsson turned the game in the Catalans’ favour, a view supported by Arsenal captain Thierry Henry, who gave an emotional interview after the game, saying:

“All the time you talk about Ronaldinho and everything, but I didn’t see him today, and I saw Henrik Larsson two times. He came on, that was the key of the game. So, sometimes I think all the time you talk about people like Ronaldinho, Eto’o, and people like that. Talk about the proper people, sometimes make a difference, and that was Henrik Larsson tonight, on two assists. Cos I did not see no Ronaldinho and did not see no Eto’o”. (Full interview here)
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What’s really interesting is to look at the clubs performance, through time, both before and after the 2006 Final. Prior to the game, (younger fans may not believe this!) but it was no foregone conclusion Barcelona would win. The Spanish club’s pedigree in the European Cup/Champions League was almost non-existent when compared to rival’s Real Madrid, AC Milan, or even Liverpool. The club had just one European Cup to their name, arriving in 1992 at Wembley  courtesy of an extra time goal from Ronald Koeman. Entering the 2006 final the Champions League/European Cup wins record between the clubs was just 1-0 to Barcelona. 

The table below shows the number of major tournaments won by both clubs entering the finalin May 2006.

While Barcelona’s record was stronger, much of the difference can be put down to success in the Copa del Rey, in the early part of the 20th century. 57 trophies to Arsenal’s 39 also fails to account for the more competitive nature of football in England, something that Real Madrid and Barcelona have almost eclipsed in recent times in Spain.

If one considers the post World War II period the score is even closer, and reads 46 – 32 in favour of Barcelona, a difference of just 14, ceteris paribus.

​What has happened thereafter is quite dramatic. The 2006 final saw Barcelona move in one direction, and Arsenal another. The table below lists the number of successes by competition after the 2006 final. Of course, this does not account for financial prudence, stadium development, revenue, financial fair play, etc. It merely looks at what most football fans think matters. 

​On the evidence of this week, it’s hard to think the gap 24-4 will close any time soon. 

By Robbie Butler

Last week Newstalks’ Off The Ball had an interesting interview with Kerry Senior Footballer Fionn Fitzgerald who has started preliminary work on relative age effects in Gaelic Games. This is of particular interest to us, having conducted work into the area for Irish soccer in the past. Our research not only confirms a bias towards players born in the months just after the cut-off point in underage soccer (January), but also a shifting bias, as prior to 1997 the 1st of August had been the cut-off date for registration.

While this interview was my main reason for me listening, I was also captured by a very interesting segment at the start of the show where the punditry of Eamon Dunphy was analysed. For those unfamiliar with Dunphy, he is one of the more outspoken pundits of Irish and Premier League soccer. His previously held views on FIFA Ballon d’Or winner Cristiano Ronaldo are now legendary. It was to this that listeners were treated to. Two segments were played. One from 2008 and the other from after last Tuesday night’s game between Roma and Real Madrid.

Here’s what Eamon said in 2008:

“The Tiger…someone like Tiger Woods. Someone like Johnny Murtagh. Someone like Ruby Walsh. Eh…someone like Padraig Harrington. They set the standards in their behaviour. In the way they deal with adversity. In the way that they deal with success and triumph. And we want to see that in our own sport. John (Giles) loves the game deeply. I love the game, and Liam (Brady) does. And to see this fella. Why do we need to say it? Throwing himself on the ground, at least half a dozen times, looking for fouls that he didn’t get. Claiming two penalties which he didn’t get. But…waving his arming at other players, on his own team. It was a disgrace to professional football”.

[Bill O’Herlihy to Eamon Dunphy - “We’ve seen it before though?]

“Yeah, hold on. You asked before was this about two great one players – Messi and Ronaldo? Well if it was, Messi proved himself after only forty-five minutes football in the last six weeks, to be at least a real pro, and a real player. This fella Ronaldo is a cod”.
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And last week…

“Athletically and football-wise he (Ronaldo) is a great, great player. I don’t think we have seen a goal scorer like him in the history of the game. His greatness now for me, at this stage, redeems everything. You know, but he’s a great. His goals. I was wrong. I should have embraced him from the start”.  

One of the most interesting books I have read over the past couple of years is Keynes Hayek: The Clash that Defined Modern Economics. The book tells the wonderful story of the clash of ideologies, from the early 1920s onwards, between the established Keynesian School at Cambridge, and the then recently established, London School of Economics off the Strand in central London.

A recurring criticism of the great J.M. Keynes, often levelled at the man, was his frequent changing of position. Following the stock market crash of 1929, the first Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Snowden, rejected Keynes’ advice on how to cure the crisis in Britain. This forced Keynes to change his position.

A round of jokes following on from this, with Winston Churchill alleged to have remarked “If you put two economists in a room, you get two opinions, unless one of them is Lord Keynes, in which case you get three”. Keynes’ reply is legendary. He said “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”

Eamon Dunphy, take a bow. 

By David Butler

This week Ezequiel Lavezzi and Nikata Jelavic joined a growing list of big name footballers that have decided to move to China. Lavezzi and Jelavic join players such as Jackson Martinez, Ramires, Alex Teixeira, Gervinho, Paulinho and Demba Ba. Well known managers such as Sven Goran Eriksson and Phil Scolari have also moved to Eastern Asia to work. The Chinese have shown a clear willingness to spend vast amounts of money to attract elite talent. 

It is interesting to think about elite talent flowing the other way to major Asian leagues, in this case the Chinese Super League. For many years the best Asian talent has moved to European leagues. The increasing migration roughly began at the turn of the millennium. Premier League fans will recall Arsenal signing Junichi Inamoto in 2001 and Tottenham signing Kazuyuki Toda in 2003. At the time I remember skeptics questioning whether there was economic motives behind these signings.  As the years have gone on however the best Asian talent has  continued to arrive on European shores with examples including Park Ji-sung, Shunsuke Nakamura, Hidetoshi Nakata, Lee Chun-soo and, now, Son Heung-min.

The chart below shows the number of footballers from Eastern Asian countries playing in the 'Big 5' European leagues for each season since 1992/1993. To be classified as Eastern Asian a player must be from China, Macau, Hong Kong, Japan, Mongolia, Republic of Korea or Taiwan.  The Bundesliga (yellow bars with numbers) has witnessed the sharpest increase in the number of Eastern Asian players over the years, with twenty Eastern Asians contracted to clubs in the top German league as of last season. This is highest number of Eastern Asian players to play in the 'Big 5' in any one season.

The growth in players from Eastern Asia seen above is primarily driven by South Korean and Japanese imports. My hunch would be that both Japan and South Korea's stellar performance at the World Cup in 2002 convinced European clubs of the quality of their talent. There is a notable increase in the numbers for the start of 2002-2003 season.

While the destination for elite players in Europe now may be the Chinese leagues, imports from China to the 'Big 5' have been few and far between over the years. On my count, there was only twelve Chinese players to join elite European clubs from 1992 to 2015,  all of whom had different levels of success. Five came to the Premier League, two came to France, one to Italy and four to Germany. A Chinese player is yet to play in La Liga. You might recognise one or two names from the list below.

With the 'Chinese Football Revolution' taking off, the question remains whether elite talent from Eastern Asia will  choose to stay there. Sure, big pay packets can attract usually aging but still marketable South American and African stars to the Chinese Super League, but will this be sustainable? Maybe a truer test of the Chinese Football Revolution is whether Chinese clubs can attract the best from their surrounding region, and of course, keep their best Chinese players at home. The phrase running before you can walk comes to mind.

by Declan Jordan

The General Election campaign is in full swing in Ireland. Each party has published their manifestos. What is in them for the Irish sports community?
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Fine Gael (the largest party in the current coalition government) proposes more physical education at primary school level and its introduction as a leaving certificate (high school) subject. They claim they will work with the Irish tourism promotion board to develop tourism in cycling, sailing, running and in adventure sports. They commit to an annualised round of sports capital grants. The party promises to produce a national sports strategy but there are no specific elements of that measure, though greater public use of the national sports campus facilities is suggested.

The Labour Party (the smaller party in the current coalition) always proposes a national sports strategy, though they indicate that, as part of that strategy there will be a specific sports bidding entity to facilitate bidding for events across all sporting organisations. The sports policy will also include elements to support sports tourism. In relation to sports capital grants they indicate that they will prioritise applications that are jointly submitted by sports clubs and schools to incentivise the facilities being available more generally to the public. They suggest a National Physcial Activity Plan which will have an objective to support the Special Olympics and increased participation in sport by females.
 
The Fianna Fail policies are framed largely in the context of improving health outcomes through encouraging physical activity. The plan around improving health includes taxes on sugar sweetened drinks, healthy eating programmes in schools, and strengthen local authorities’ powers to compulsorily purchase land for recreational use. The party promises to ‘phase out’ alcohol companies’ sponsorship of sporting events. They indicate that there will be an audit of NAMA properties to identify those suted for sports and recreation use and that “major construction project levies should integrate a contribution to locals sports clubs, such as land or monetary contributions”. The party will change the Sports Capital Grants system to allow funding of Community Centres, providing services to elderly social groups. It’s unclear if this will be mean a reduction in the money available to sports clubs.
 
Sinn Fein’s commitments on sport are contained in the section on building communities. The manifesto says they “ see sport as having a vital role in developing communities and want to ensure that investment is made in recreational sport first and foremost at community level; and that all sporting bodies, particularly at professional level, are properly funding and governed.” There is an unquantified commitment to invest in sport and another commitment to invest €42 million in sport at community level. This is in a section headed an all-island approach.
 
Renua Ireland is the only party to mention specific sports in their election manifesto. They have sections dedicated to Horse and Greyhound Racing and the Horse Sport Industry. To support these industries they propose increasing the betting levy from 1% to 3% and ringfencing the income for the sports. They state that “a senior level Department unit should be created to facilitate and drive government policy on the [thoroughbred] sector”. With specific reference to the showjumping, eventing and dressage sectors, they propose a four year tax incentive scheme “to attract investment in the sector, with a clear goal of garnering medals at the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2020”.Interestingly the policy also states in the section on the tax system, that “the only circumstance in which RENUA Ireland believes reliefs should be permissible is a situation where appalling economic planning has led to a market failure”.
 
The Social Democrats, a new party in this election, do not have any mention of sports in their manifesto. There were no mentions of sport in the manifesto of People Before Profit, and I couldn’t find a manifesto for their allies in the Anti-Austerity Alliance. 

By David Butler

A standard approach in labour economics is to view human capital as a set of skills and characteristics which are important to the efficiency of the firm and are useful in the production process. Although different interpretations of human capital naturally exist, workers can be modelled as agents that hold the capacity to graft, obey orders and take their place in the hierarchy of the firm.

An interesting case arose last weekend in the English Premier League which showcased how the workforce must toe the line. In the era of player power it was refreshing to see Liverpool prevent Daniel Sturridge from wearing a hat that marketed his own brand.  I’m sure New Balance, the manufacturer of Liverpool’s kits, had an issue with Sturridge’s brand building exercise.

With the exception of a few footballers, such as David Beckham, Cristiano Ronaldo, David Ginola, Eric Cantona and Vinny Jones (and probably a few more) it can be hard for players to build a distinct and successful brand based on their image. This episode with Mr. Sturridge's apparel might remind fans that the players are after all only one cog in the wheel, albeit a critical one. And while much emphasis is placed on human capital in football clubs in the short run, the players are ultimately transient – in ten years’ time I'm sure Sturridge and the current crop of Liverpool stars will only be a memory, the firm no doubt will live on.  

By Robbie Butler

I gave a short lecture to visiting senior cycle secondary school students (high school) on issues in Irish sport today. The talk focussed on participation rates in Irish sport and the role of mega sporting events to the economy. The event took place in University College Cork and my slides from the talk can be viewed below

By Robbie Butler

Last evening, myself and a friend were discussing the current Premier League title race. The two of us have both independently formed the view that Leicester City (amazingly) could now win the Premier League title. We came to this conclusion by a process of elimination of who can stop them? Liverpool or Chelsea? Certainly not. Man United Probably not. Arsenal or Tottenham can’t be trusted, with the former traditionally capitulating at this point in the season, while the latter having no recent experience of even challenging for the title. So that leaves just Manchester City, who enter a period of huge uncertainty now that Manuel Pellegrini is set to leave this summer.

We joked that some children growing up around Ireland could now end up becoming Leicester City fans on the back of one excellent season. This brought us to the more philosophical conversation as how one becomes a supporter of a particular club in the first place.

In the Irish context, this is very interesting as the vast majority of football fans with an interest in the English Premier League have no natural affiliation to any club. Therefore, it’s simply a matter of choice.

I have been a Liverpool supporter for as long as I can remember. In fact, I have no memory of my conscious decision to become a Reds supporter. I assume I picked Liverpool because of their success in the mid-1980s. Many people of my age in Ireland would have made an identical choice. In many ways this is what makes football so wonderful. As other things I believed in as a child fade or are proven wrong, football is my one constant.

A nice break occurs at the start of the Premier League in 1992. Two years earlier Manchester United won the FA Cup. While many people in Ireland born between 1970 and 1985 support Liverpool, less are probably fans of the Merseyside club if born post-1985. Many of these wear a different ‘red jersey’ with people aged between 15 and 30 more likely to be Manchester United fans. In recent years, from talking to friends that work in underage soccer and schools, a growing number of Chelsea and Manchester City fans are emerging. These are added to the mix of the always popular Arsenal and Tottenham.

This is not a new phenomenon. I recall attending primary school with a Blackburn supporter (won the EPL in 1995) Newcastle fan (almost won the league in the late 1990s) and even a Norwich City fan (played in the UEFA Cup 1993, beating the mighty Bayern Munich). I played street-league soccer in the late 1980s at home both with and against West Ham, Everton, Stoke City, Leeds United fans, and even a Sheffield Wednesday fan.

I wonder is this still the case today? The number of clubs kids now support seems to be shrinking. The concentration ratio appears to have shot up. This could be a consequence of the emerging 'big clubs' and the dominance of the likes of Man Utd, Chelsea, Aresenal, etc. That said, Leicester’s amazing run this season may see the emergence of a new Irish supporter, especially those young enough not to be aligned to any club.

​As I said, I think they can win the league this year, but potential fans beware. It might be short-run gain but long-run pain. ​Something a Liverpool fan like me knows all too well!  

 By David Butler

Black swans are unpredictable and irregular events.  This term was popularised by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in light of his 2007 book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable.  In short, the central idea of the book concerns a problem of induction.  We make the inference that if all the swans we have seen previously are white, it follows that all swans are white.  But generalising from past observations can be dangerous. All it takes is for you to see one black swan and your inference is incorrect.

Maybe Leicester City could be added to the list of examples of black swan events if they manage to win the Premier League? While Taleb argues that black swan events are simply not computable, the markets did price Leicester City from 2000-1 to 5000-1 (depending on your bookmaker) at the start of the English Premier League season. Although we did have a probability of Leicester succeeding, I think it was fair to say that the Foxes winning the Premier League in August 2015 fits into the realm of the highly improbable.

The bookmakers used past events as a guide to future outcomes in August 2015, as they usually do. Below are the market prices to win the Premier League at the beginning of five recent seasons I could get data for. This data was accessed from a range of sources including newspaper guides and gambling websites such as Paddy Power.

​As expected the bookies get things right most of the time. In the five seasons shown below either the favourite or second favourite won the Premier League (marked in yellow). The teams marked in blue are the other top three placed teams for that season. In regards to the top 4, once again the bookies get things mostly right.

The black swan idea is powerful. We expect smooth predictable outcomes and underestimate the role of brute forms of uncertainty, whether in finance or in football. When these black swan events do occur, they often have drastic effects.  Maybe the most drastic effect of Leicester City winning the EPL would be for researchers - they may likely mess with an awful lot of statistical models!

If they do win the Premier League maybe Leicester's success will be retrospectively explainable? This is a key aspect to idea of black swans. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and the highly unpredictable will be rationalised by commentators. With the wonderful Mahrez, why couldn't they win it? 

​By Robbie Butler 

The recently published Football and Money – A Soccernomics Guide has a very interesting section on the role of the manager in improving team performance. In a nutshell, it suggests that while most managers have little impact, a minority do exist that have a disproportionately positive impact on team performance. Names such as Sir Alex Ferguson and the lesser known Paul Sturrock are mentioned. Previous work by Declan Jordan on this site has examined a similar issue here.

A couple of weeks back Sky Sports ran a wonderful advertisement for the Premier League clash between Arsenal and Chelsea where footage of Arsene Wenger, manager of the Gunners since 1996, was shown with each of the thirteen managers of Chelsea between then and now. The two clubs couldn't be more different when it comes to their approach to hiring and firing managers.

​One must assume that both the people in charge of Arsenal, and those in charge of Chelsea, believe their policy concerning managers is the most productive for their club. It’s hard to argue that Wenger has not been successful. In fact, only Sir Alex has enjoyed more success as a manager since 1996 in England. On the other hand, Guus Hiddink's arrival at Stamford Bridge has seen a marked improvement in Chelsea’s fortunes. Sacking Jose Mourinho appears to have worked, at least in the short run.

But does this hold throughout time? Below is a quick analysis of the now forty-six clubs that have completed at least one season in the English Premier League, since its foundation in 1992.

The findings suggest a positive, and more importantly, significant relationship between the number of managers (excluding caretakers for a limited number of games) and the average number of points per season. The adjusted R² is quite low however at just 0.136. There appears, as one expects, to be much more going on.

Chelsea’s policy appears to work. Only Newcastle have had as many managers since 1992, but their strategy has been less successful. At the other end, Manchester United and Arsenal’s stability can only be admired. So while the numbers may (statistically) indicating sacking works, almost every United fans must yearn for the days of Sir Alex. Arsenal fans should cherish Wenger while they have him.