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A Long Road Ahead For Gibraltar

31/3/2015

Gibraltar players run to celebrate with Lee Casciaro after he equalizes against Scotland at Hampden Park

By Robbie Butler

On Sunday I sat in a Dublin pub, prior to kick-off in the Ireland Poland game, watching Scotland take on Gibraltar in their UEFA European Championship qualifier. Both Irish and Polish fans had an interest in the game given that Scotland are very much in the mix for qualification to the finals from Group D.

As expected, Scotland started the game in complete control. However, having taken the lead after 18 minutes, Scotland then did the inexplicable – they conceded a goal. This was Gibraltar’s very first competitive goal and the name Lee Casciaro will now go down in history. The Lincoln Red Imps FC player was winning his 5th cap when he silenced Hampden Park and sent the hundred or so travelling supporters into delirium. Normal service did resume thereafter and Scotland ran out 6 – 1 winners.

Given the structure of the European Championship Groups, one could question the value of allowing a nation like Gibraltar to participate. While the top two teams will qualify directly from each group, the highest ranked third-placed team will also qualify. However, as one group contains just five teams, matches against any 6th placed team in each group will not be included in this ranking.

Many nations, like Gibraltar, face a similar uphill struggle. The problem is obviously one of population, a key ingredient in economic growth as well as football. Gibraltar simply doesn’t have the numbers. I have a tendency to group ‘smaller’ countries together when in fact they face very different circumstances. Excluding Kazakhstan, which has a population of over 16 million, the other Pot 6 (bottom seeds) countries in the UEFA European Championship Qualifying draw were Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Andorra, Faroe Islands, Malta and San Marino. The populations in each country are presented below and compared to Gibraltar.

Whilst one might think these countries are ‘all the same’, the population’s stories tell us something very different. Gibraltar has just 30,000 citizens. That’s the equivalent of a large Irish town like Bray or Navan. Luxembourg and Malta are vastly more populated. Even Andorra has more than two-and-a-half times the population of Gibraltar. San Marino is very similar to the tiny British Territory. Since the Italian surrounded microstate entered UEFA qualifying in 1990 they have played 124 games. Their record to date reads Won 1 - Drawn 4 - Lost 119. It could be a long road ahead for Gibraltar.

One Man Team? The Reliance of Premier Clubs on Star Players

30/3/2015

By Stephen Brosnan

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar once said “One man can be a key ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team”. Collis and Montgomery (1995) note that a firm’s competitive advantage derives ultimately from the ownership of a valuable resource. Superior performance derives from developing a ‘competitively distinct’ set of resources and deploying them in a well conceived strategy. In terms of football clubs, one of the most significant resources a club possesses are its players. While analysts would argue that football is a team sport and there is no ‘one man team’, it is evident that most clubs do possess a star player, or key resource, that is fundamental to their success. Given the chances of injury, suspension, fatigue and loss of form over the course of the season, the over reliance by a club on the contribution of one player can significantly impact their competitiveness over the course of a season.

Table 1 highlights the contribution of each Premier League clubs ‘star’ player during the current season. The players selected have made the highest contribution to teams goals (goals + assists) and analysis looks at the percentage of teams goals in which the player contributed, the points lost in the absence of this contribution and a teams win/loss percentage with and without their star player.

In terms of contribution to their team’s overall goals, Charlie Austin has had the highest contribution, playing an active part in two thirds of all QPR’s goals this season. Burnley’s Danny Ings is second in terms of involvement in team’s goals either scoring or assisting in over half of all Burnley’s goals this season. Given both these clubs currently lie in the Premier League relegation zone, injury or suspension to either of these players would have a significantly negative impact on the chances of the team’s Premier League survival.

Harry Kane has been a revelation for Tottenham Hotspurs this season, particularly since the turn of the year. Kane has contributed scored 16 goals and provided 6 assists which accounts for 48% of all Spurs’ goals. The loss of Kane’s contribution would see Spurs drop 19 points, the highest points contribution by any one player. Also, Tottenham have failed to win any of the four games which Kane has not featured, highlighting his importance to Spurs competitiveness. Alexis Sanchez highlighted his importance to Arsenal’s quest for Champion League football with 13 goals and 7 assists which resulted in winning 19 points for the Gunners so far this season.

The over reliance of clubs on one key player can seriously undermine a club’s ‘long term’ competitiveness over the course of the season. Sergio Aguero has scored in just 2 out of Manchester City’s last 9 games which has seen the club drop 15 points and lose serious ground in the title race. Man. City’s only marginal hope of a title challenge is a result of Chelsea dropping six points on the back of Diego Costa’s return of 1 goal in last 6 games. Down the other end, Aston Villa’s survival chances have been boosted by the form of their star man Gabby Agbonlahor (3 goals in 2 games) which has resulted in 6 points while the fate of Burnley, Leicester and QPR looks grim on the back of their star player’s recent form (Austin 2 goals in 8, Ings 3 goals in 8 and Ulloa 0 goals in 10).

Stephan Brosnan is a research assistant working in the Department of Economics at University College Cork.

The Rise of Instant Gratification Sport - Part II

28/3/2015

By David Butler

In February I spoke about the rise instant gratification sport in light of the development of Fast4 Tennis. The shorter sport models seem to appeal to fans who require a greater degree of certainty regarding when an outcome of a contest will be known (more so children?) and really doesn't require a sports fan to put up with delaying their gratification for a result. How individuals evaluate sooner (smaller) rewards and larger (later) rewards is key to studying intertemporal choice or choice over time in Economics.

At the end of the entry I thought about the development of ‘speed baseball’. Last week I came across an article online (available here) that informed me that Major League Baseball is set to experiment rule modifications in an independent league for the 2015 season. The new rules are not specifically targeted toward shortening games, instead they are aimed at reducing down time. The commercial breaks are coming on the clock and an experiment will be conducted with three-ball walks and two-strike foul outs. For me, a roundabout way of reducing game length. The BBC recently cited the falling participation numbers in Tennis as a key reason in developing the new rules for Fast4 Tennis. It seems that baseball is now also turning to the clock to try and improve the sport.

Can you still call this baseball? Maybe not. Is putting sport on the clock the only solution to alleged popularity crises? Maybe not either.

Daniel Rooney Rules

27/3/2015

By John Considine

Just over a month ago I wrote a piece about Black, Minority and Ethnic coaches in English football (here). The piece was prompted by Chris Ramsey's appointment as manager of QPR. In the piece I referred to a 2014 report on the issue by Steven Bradbury. This week QPR director, and former QPR centre-forward, Les Ferdinand reignited the debate with a suggestion that there should be some form of Rooney Rule implemented in English football (here). It is interesting that the issue has resurfaced during the week that Greg Dyke raised the issue about the number of English player in the Premier League (see David Butler's post from yesterday). Last October, the man who lends his name to the rule, Dan Rooney, suggested that English football had nothing to lose from such a rule (here).

The FA and Isolationism

26/3/2015

The EPL is Bottom of The List for Non-EU players

By David Butler

On the 23rd of March Stefan Szymanski, a leading Sports Economist, offered his thoughts on how Greg Dyke (head of the FA) persuaded the English government to approve new rules on work permits for foreign players. It is important to note the motivation for the rule change by Greg Dyke is to improve the English national team and to allow more English-born players into top-flight clubs.

Szymanski maintains that “the policy of isolationism when faced with strong foreign competition almost never works”. I think few Economists would disagree with this sentiment. He also suggests that the rules may contravene EU law on the free movement of labour and predicts that the new rules will neither reduce the percentage of foreign players in the EPL nor improve the performance of the national team. I’d have to agree here too.

I have written about this general topic many times, a summary can be read here.

Here are some facts once again on the nationalities of 2,751 footballers from the start of this season in Europe (that is accurate up to the opening of the last transfer window).

1. As of the start of the 2014-2015 season to the 31st of December, the EPL had the lowest amount of Non-EU footballers (22.5%) when compared to the other big European leagues – Serie A (34%), Lique 1 (34.66%), Bundesliga (27.2%) and La Liga (26.5%).

2. Oppositely, the EPL has the highest percentage of players born in the EU (77.5%) when compared to the other Big 4 leagues, but has the lowest amount of national born players. The EPL has over double the number of footballers (231) from the EU but not from the country of the domestic league when compared to the other big four of Serie A (107), Bundesliga (102), La Liga (57) and Lique 1 (55).

If anything, players from within the EU are ‘the problem’, not those from outside. Looking at the aggregates, the EPL clubs adopt a model where about 25% of players come from outside the EU and the remaining 75% is split equally between national born players and those from other EU countries. The other Big 4 leagues adopt a similar model in terms of attracting non-EU talent but they differ from the EPL in that the players from the EU in Germany, France, Spain and Italy are predominantly from that country.

The Tiny Gulf State

25/3/2015

By Robbie Butler

I recently spoke about the challenges facing the Qatar 2022 World Cup, the first World Cup in history not to be played during the traditional, Northern Hemisphere summer months. Both FIFA and the organisers in Qatar have gone to great lengths to explain the need for the switch, and argue that football simply cannot be played in conditions of 45 -50 degrees Celsius during the months of June and July in the tiny Gulf state.

And therein lies another problem. Qatar is tiny by global standards.

Depending on what you classify as a country, Qatar comes in as the 164th biggest state on the planet, one place behind the Falkland Islands! Since the World Cup went to a sixty-four game tournament in 1998 thirty-two teams have competed in the Finals. World Cup Finals have been staged in France (1998), Korea & Japan (2002), Germany (2006), South Africa (2010) and Brazil (2014). The illustrations below show how Qatar (purple) compares in terms of its geographic size to each of these former hosts (pink).

Another problem is surely the location of the twelve proposed hosting venues, spread across seven locations six of which are located on the eastern side of the Qatar Peninsula. Doha (4) and Al Rayyan (3), which lie just 55km away from one another, will together provide seven of the stadia for the event. The locations of Al Daayen, Al Khor, Ash-Shamal, Al Wakrah and Umm Salal will each provide one stadium.

Finally, just for the Irish perspective, here’s how Qatar compares to Ireland. Ireland (70,273 km²) is 6.07 times as big as Qatar (11,571 km²). In fact, counties Cork and Kerry combined cover some 12,300km², roughly 760km² more than Qatar.

Maybe this Rugby World Cup bid isn’t a bad idea after all…;-)

Paddy Power – A Safe Bet?

24/3/2015

By David Butler

Recently Robbie Butler looked at how challenging it is to beat the market at the Cheltenham festival by just following favourites. Over the past year I have presented data to show how experts commonly get it wrong when it comes to predicting the outcome of English Premier League matches. I'm not surprised when I hear people say that gambling on horses and football, in an effort to win money, is a mug's game - we sure can't beat the market systematically by picking favourites and the experts in all sports even have trouble calling the outcome. Here's an alternative - betting on the bookmakers themselves.

Earlier this month Paddy Power provided interesting Preliminary Financial Results. Some of the highlights included the company earning a net revenue of €882m, up 18%. The firm recorded a profit before tax that was up 21% (€167m). Also, there seems to be a clear growth in online gambling, more than likely facilitated by the growth of smart phones and the dawn of the I-Phone circa 07'/08'. Paddy Power showed strong momentum in all online and retail betting and mobile net revenue accounted for a leading 55% of online revenue in the latest results.

I don’t know whether it’s a good idea that adults in society have a computer in their pockets that will allow them access to 24/7 gambling. Rather than moralising, I'll just show the closing share price of Paddy Power from 2000 to 2015 (below).

Given what appears to be a constant demand for sport globally, you may be better off taking a punt on Paddy Power himself than having a punt in one of his shops!

Brazil: World Cup Legacy and Olympic Lead In

21/3/2015

By Robbie Butler

On the 23rd of May last year I wrote A Stadium But No Team. The post examined the World Cup in Brazil and the development of new stadiums around the country. The entry centered on Estádio Nacional, the newly built multi-purpose stadium in the capital Brasília - the second most expensive stadium ever built! What is remarkable about this $900 billion stadium is that it is located in a city with no major football team.

Recently I came across a tweet by Brad Humphrey's regarding the stadiums since the World Cup ended. It appears the stadium is now being used as a bus depot. You can read the story here.

Brazil is currently getting some bad press for its preparations for the summer 2016 Olympic Games. Here is a YouTube clip titled "Water too polluted for Games". This BBC report is just over three minutes long and captures some of the problems faced by organisers of the Games in Rio. And, here is a CCTV America report on the same issue. This report on Guanabara Bay is just under three minutes. Both reports convey a view that there are serious health and safety issues involved. Both reports draw attention to the claim by the Brazilian government that they are working to have the venue ready in time. But the most interesting aspect of both reports is that athletes are currently training in the venue.

Form or Reputation: The Case of England’s Strikers

20/3/2015

By Stephen Brosnan

This time twelve months ago, Roy Hodgson was less than two months away from picking his England squad for Euro 2014. At the time he said "I have to do it on the merits of the players. It's not like it has been in the past sometimes where loyalty can be rewarded."

Fast forward 12 months and Roy’s sentiment seems to have changed somewhat. Discussing the selection of England’s most in form striker Harry Kane for England’s upcoming fixtures Hodgson stated “Often if someone like Kane is going to come into the squad, then someone is going to drop out and up until now most of the players that we've had, at least in the forward area of our squad, have done quite well for us during the autumn, so you can't include everybody unfortunately.” The England strikers Hodgson selected for England’s autumn fixtures were Wayne Rooney, Danny Welbeck, Rickie Lambert and Saido Berinho. Table 1 looks at the performance of these strikers compared to other English strikers in the Premier League to assess whether they deserve to keep their place on merit or are selected based purely on reputation.

Harry Kane is the most inform striker in the Premier League averaging 8.4 points per game in Fantasy Premier League. Kane is the highest scoring English forward in the Premier league (16 goals) and joint highest assists, with Danny Welbeck (4 assists each). Also, Kane has the best goals per minute ratio, averaging a goal every 105.5 minutes in the Premier League. Charlie Austin is the second highest English goal scorer in the Premier League and second in goals per minute played, averaging a goal every 144 minutes. These figures are even more impressive considering Austin is playing for relegation battling QPR.

By contrast, looking at England’s strikers from their last squad we can see Saido Berinho, who didn’t feature in any of England’s games is highest scorer with 12 goals followed by Wayne Rooney on 10. Arsenal’s Danny Welbeck, England’s highest scorer in the World Cup qualifiers has only registered 4 Premier League goals ( 1 every 388 minutes) while Rickie Lambert has only registered 2 goals all season since his transfer to Liverpool (1 every 303 minutes). These rates are lower than Jermain Defoe and Peter Crouch who have long been forgotten in the international scene.

Roy Hodgson announced his squad this morning which included Wayne Rooney, Daniel Sturridge, Danny Welbeck and Harry Kane in the forward line. Realistically, given Rooney’s position of England captain only three forward places were available in the squad. Hodgson’s selection seems to be a mixture of both form and reputation. In-form players such Berinho, Austin and Ings are excluded in preference to fit again Daniel Sturridge and ‘marmite’ player Danny Welbeck, England’s top scorer in qualification so far. Also, Harry Kane has been rewarded for his fine form with his first senior call up.

Hodgson’s selection can be considered a safe bet. England’s most in form striker has been included along with the players who have been there and done it. All the strikers are on the books at clubs usually challenging for Champions League places which begs the question whether Berinho, Ings and Austin’s form would have warranted a call up if they did not play for less attractive clubs such as West Brom, QPR and Burnley. However, that is a question for another day.

Stephan Brosnan is a research assistant working in the Department of Economics at University College Cork.

Paul Merson & Predictions: Update 4

19/3/2015

By David Butler

[The final entry on this post can be accessed here]

On the 28th of August I began recording Sky Sports Pundit and ex-Premier League Footballer Paul Merson’s predictions for EPL fixtures. These predictions are usually published by Sky Sports the day before EPL matches. The first four entries that followed his predictions can be found here, here, here and here. Given that Paul will make 380 predictions over the course of the Premier League season (289/380 to date), we have a rare opportunity to analyse the accuracy of a football pundit and Sky Sports football expert who systematically predicts.

Merse has now predicted the outcome of 289 fixtures and only has 9 gameweeks left. He has successfully predicted the right result 117 times, the right score line 27 times and has been incorrect on 145 occasions. As per the past entries Merson's predictions are compared to the output of a random number generator. Since the last update, the results have stayed mostly the same. Merse is again approximately 15% ahead of randomness.

Also included below is Merson's updated Premier League Table which represents what the EPL would look in light of his estimations. Merson has successfully predicted the standing of the first two teams but has overestimated how many points Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool and Arsenal would have collected by this stage.

Even though he has predicted half of the outcomes incorrectly he still gets the top five correct  (although the order is wrong). In terms of the Champions League race, the table would suggest that Merson thinks Liverpool and Arsenal will be 3rd and 4th respectively. Currently, Manchester United are 4th. Merson underestimates the performance of Tottenham and Southampton, suggesting that they would have 9 and 16 less points accumulated respectively. Finally in regards to relegation Merson has one of the three teams in the relegation zone correct – Burnley. They are currently 18th in reality and also from Merson’s estimates. He has underestimated the performance of West Brom.

Although it may appear Merse isn't performing too well, as I showed recently, he is ahead of the BT pundits when it comes to predicting correct outcomes and his table still looks reasonably accurate.

As John Eakins has previously discussed and I introduced some weeks back, we think the predictions of pundits can be explained through the lens of behavioural economics. Basically pundits  suggest results that are quite easy to imagine. There is plenty of theoretical work on nonadditive subjective probabilities and our hunch is that these pundits may fall foul to an 'imaginability' bias - in short this goes that imagining an event may cause one to hold an increased subjective probability of it happening. We have a hunch that outcomes that are easier to imagine will be judged as more likely. How many of us go into Paddy Powers to back a 0-0 draw?!

We are also currently asking whether the market believes in this?  A issue similar to this has been addressed before in sport. In 1989 Colin Camerer asked whether the basketball market believed in the 'hot hand'. By examining whether perceived hot streaks by fans affected the point spreads in betting markets, Camerer's study found that bets on teams on 'winning streaks' were more unsuccessful while teams on 'losing streaks' tended to over perform. As Camerer notes mistaken beliefs in the market such as the hot hand raise important economic questions as there presence may make the allocation of resources sub-optimal.

I will provide two more updates on this entry - before and after the final fixtures of the season. At the end of the season I will look at the Merson's goal distribution as John Eakins did here for Mark Lawrenson and I will give an update in regards to the findings from our paper where we are looking at whether pundits succumb to this bias.