by Declan Jordan

​Just over 40 years ago my hometown football club had one its biggest games. Limerick United played Real Madrid in the European Cup in October 1980. The ‘home’ game was moved to Dublin in a vain attempt to raise some extra money. It turned out to be a bad idea, as only 6,000 people turned up to see the part-timers lose 2-1 against a late goal and a very suspect penalty. We also had a goal disallowed, but we are not holding on to it too much.
 
For Irish football fans the days of attracting big clubs for European fixtures are now very rare. Shamrock Rovers played AC Milan earlier this season in the Europa League, but typically our clubs now are more likely have early round games against clubs from other lesser leagues.
 
These games came about because the European Cup used to be a competition between European league champions. Now it is a much bigger competition with the larger leagues now having up to four qualifiers. The teams from the big leagues are seeded so they are kept away from clubs in less illustrious leagues in the earlier rounds.
 
I think it is clear that the inclusion of more teams from the stronger leagues has improved the quality of the competition and we see much better games, particularly in the knock-out stages. The television viewer cannot complain and the Champions League is arguably the best club competition in the world.
 
However, as a supporter of a team in a less fashionable league I do also have a sense of the loss of these big occasions for fans like me.
 
There is also the implication for balance in the competition. Allowing more big clubs into the competition should mean that more clubs have a better chance of winning, since it is not necessary to win the domestic league to qualify. What we might also expect though is that the number of different countries producing winners may decrease, as more qualifiers from the stronger leagues, and the more forgiving move away from straight knockout, favour the better (and richer) countries.
 
The table below shows the number of different clubs and the number of different leagues that have won, lost the final, and lost a semi-final in the Champions League compared to the European Cup experience over a similar time period.
 
It is important to note that one of the strongest leagues (England) had no representatives in the European Cup from 1985 to 1990 after the Heysel tragedy. This gap does not change the different number of countries that won the European Cup, though it is interesting to note that no English team featured in a semi-final from the Liverpool defeat at Heysel in 1985 until Manchester United lost in the then Champions League the 1996/7 season.

​The table shows that the number of clubs that have won or reached the last four of the Champions League from 1993 to 2020 is lower than the corresponding number of number of clubs that won the European Cup over the same time period (1964 to 1992).  This difference is even more pronounced in the last 10 years relative to the final 10 years of the European Cup.
 
It is also the case that we have seen fewer leagues represented in the final four places of the Champions League.
 
This has been particularly noticeable in the last 10 years. Since the 2010/11 season only five clubs from three leagues have won the tournament – Bayern, Liverpool, Chelsea, Barcelona, and Real Madrid. More remarkably, only five leagues have been represented in the finals (adding in PSG and Juventus) and six leagues when we drop down to include semi-finalists (Ajax). This means the last four places have been monopolised by the top 6 leagues (Spain, England, Italy, France, Germany, and the Netherlands).
 
Compare this to the final places in the last 10 years before the establishment of the Champions League. There 9 winners in 10 seasons – Hamburg, Liverpool, Juventus, Steaua, Porto, PSV, Milan, Red Star, and Barcelona. Eighteen different leagues had teams in at least the semi-finals.
 
I should note that I have used the current nations in the analysis – so that winners before 1989 that played in the Soviet and Czechoslovakian league are counted as Russian, Ukrainian, Cezh or Slovakian as appropriate. This turned out to be a minor issue as, for example, no East German teams featured and only Sebrian teams featured for Yugoslavia.
 
Allowing more teams from the stronger leagues is associated with greater concentration of success, at club and league levels. For the stronger, and richer, leagues in Europe this may very well be a feature rather than a bug.

by Declan Jordan

The FIFA Women's World Cup in France continues to throw up great games and surprises. The women's game is in the spotlight and, while the football has been great, there are frustrations at FIFA's organisation and commitment to the game, pay inequality, and sexism.

It is perhaps unavoidable that the competition and women's football generally is compared to the men's equivalent. It is not difficult to find patronising commentary on television and in print media whenever women's football is covered. There is almost surprise, particularly in the Irish and UK coverage with which I am most familiar, that professional athletes are technically skillful, competitive, and committed. (There are similarities in the treatment of female football analysts, referred to by Alex Scott here. That it is surprising that someone who has played 140 times for her country should be insightful about the game says a lot about our attitudes to women in football).

Perhaps these attitudes are based on an outdated notion of the women's game, though there are certainly socialised stereotypes at play as well. In a recent article in the Irish Examiner, Larry Ryan referred to a comment by England striker Toni Duggan that she was somewhat heartened to see the anger from opposition fans when she celebrated a goal she scored for Barcelona. For her it showed that the game mattered and the players were being taken seriously. The article though warns that the women's game should try to avoid going down the road of the men's game and should instead try to hold on to the values of inclusion, loyalty, and community.

This doesn't mean of course that the women's game will not get more competitive, skillful, and demanding.

The negative stereotypes will take time to break down of course, but it is interesting to review the data on previous World Cup Finals, both women's and men's, to shed some light on the game's development.The USA's 13-0 demolition of Thailand has led to some suggestions that the World Cup is losing credibility and the increase in teams from 16 to 24 will damage the tournament with more one-sided games.

The data doesn't back this up however.

The graph below shows the goals per game at each of the last seven World Cup Finals tournaments (the last men's tournament was 2018 in Russia and the last Women's tournament was in 2015 in Canada). For information, in the first round of group matches in the current tournament (12 in all) to Tuesday June 11, there have been 3.17 goals per game. Excluding the USA-Thailand game the ratio is 2.27 goals per game).

It is striking how the ratio of goals per game has declined over the seven tournaments. From having just over a goal more per game, the women's tournament has now reached a comparable level with the men's. Whether this is a positive or negative development is unclear, though even as the number of countries in the finals of the Women's World Cup has increased goals have become more difficult to come by.

Similarly with the number of low-scoring games, there has been a narrowing in the differences between the tournaments over time. The Women's World Cup Finals did not see a scoreless match until the final day of the third World Cup (in 1999) when both the third place play-off and the final ended nil all. Up to the last World Cup finals there have been nine scoreless matches. There has been one more in current tournament when Argentina parked the bus against the favoured Japanese. In comparison over the last seven men's tournaments there has been an increase in scoreless matches from close to 5% of matches to 15% in 2014. In 2018 there was only one scoreless match.

It is interesting though to include the number of games that have ended 1-0. The green bar in the graph below shows the proportion of matches that have had one goal or less (within 90 minutes). The women's World Cup has gone from about 12% of matches in the first tournament in 1991 (and only 6% in 1999) to a third of matches in 2015. (A third of the 12 games in the current tournament have had one goal or less). 

​The grey bar shows the corresponding data for the men's tournaments. Rising from 1994 to 2010 before falling in 2014 and 2018, the level has been between about a quarter and a third. The women's rate has exceeded the men's in the most recent tournament. 

It may be that the fewer number of participants in the women's finals means the best teams are playing and the matches are closer. The number of teams taking part increased however in 2015 from 16 to 24. Adding the extra teams has not diminished the closeness of the games (measured by the proportion of low scoring games). It may instead point to an increase in standards - or at least a decrease in the variability of standards - at the elite level and the women's game converging with the men's game, whether for good or ill.

The data may also point to greater levels of organisation in coaching and associated resources from national bodies for the women's national teams, and further posts may explore that idea.

by Declan Jordan

Earlier this week David Butler posted on the English FA's proposal to limit the number of non-homegrown players in senior squads, a move that has not gone down too well with the Premier League. I agree that the proposal may damage the quality of the Premier League. The justification reminds me of Brexiteers blaming UK economic problems on immigrants, when in reality, just as it is with the Premier League, immigrants are the potential solution to economic issues rather than the cause of them.

There is recent evidence however on the impact of foreign players on club performance in a recent paper in the Journal of Sports Economics (requires subscription). A colleague, Vicente Royuela, and his co-author Roberto Gasquez, from the University of Barcelona examined the influence of foreign players on the success of football clubs.

Using data from 971 clubs across the top-tier of 71 leagues, the paper shows that clubs in leagues with a higher proprtion of foreign players tend to perform better than clubs in leagues with less foreign players. However, within a league, having more foreign players does not have a significant effect on a club's performance.

This has implications for the FA's new policy on caps on foreign players. Fewer foreign players will negatively affect the quality of the clubs in the Premier League, damaging the 'product'. This indicates why the Premier League would oppose the move. At the same time, the relative performance of clubs with the Premier League will be unaffected. The most important determinant of within-league performance according to the authors is a club's wealth.

This suggests that those clubs that can afford to sign better quality foreign players will still be relatively better able to sign them. It highlights of course that the most important part of performance is not from where players come, but how good they are.

by Declan Jordan

At the business end of the Airtricity League of Ireland there is very little yet to be decided. Dundalk are on the verge of being champions, UCD won the First Division, and Bray Wanderers are effectively relegated from the Premier Division.
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It is also very likely that my own club, Limerick FC, will take part in the relegation/promotion play-off against as they seem destined to finish second from bottom of the Premier Division.

To find some hope I looked back over previous playoffs. It made for unhappy reading. The table below shows the outcome of the last 11 relegation/promotion playoffs (there were no playoffs in 2017 and 2008).

In the last 11 years, the First Division team won the playoff. The odds would seem stacked against Limerick this season. The remarkable success of the promoted teams may reflect the momentum going into the game, where from a First Division gets a boost from achieving a play-off place while the Premier Division team is deflated by not avoiding a play-off place.

This may be a similar effect in the English Championship where the promotion play-offs are contested by teams finishing third to sixth at the end of the season. In the last 10 seasons, the third place team was promoted 50% of the time.

by Declan Jordan

Today sees the return of the Airtricity League of Ireland for a new season. It seems there is hardly a season goes by in this league where there hasn't been a change of format, and so it is with this season. The Premier Division is once again reduced to 10 teams for the first time since 2011. This will be the sixth season out of sixteen since the move to summer football that there have been 10 teams in the Premier Division.

For fans in Munster there is also the added excitement of three clubs from the province in the League for the first time since 1994, when Limerick, Cork, and Cobh were in the top division.

This season Cork City (the champions), Limerick FC, and Waterford FC will play each other four times in the league. Clubs from these cities were mainstays in the top tier of the league right up to the early 1990s and it is a common complaint about the league that Dublin clubs have dominated in the last two decades or so. There are well-founded worries about the viability of clubs in the provincial cities because of that Dublin dominance.

However, a look at the experience of the league since the move to summer football in 2003 suggests that Dublin dominance may be waning. The table below shows the spread of top tier clubs by province, including a column for Dublin. The location of the champions is indicated by a box for each season, with a tick when the champion was based in the capital. Note that I have included Bray Wanderers as a Dublin team, which might not make too many Seagull supporters happy, but most functional region factors would suggest they are within the Greater Dublin Area (not least its connection to the Dublin by light rail). 

The data suggests a decline in the dominance of Dublin clubs, indicated by the lack of a champion since 2013 and a reduction in clubs from Dublin in the top tier. It seems there is a concentration within Dublin among a smaller group of clubs - Shamrock Rovers, Bohemian FC, St Patricks Athletic, and Bray Wanderers. In the early to mid part of the last decade there were clubs that have since failed to keep up (Shelbourne and UCD) or gone out of business (Dublin City, Sporting Fingal). Cabinteely joined the league in 2015 but have not come near to promotion in that time. Is it a coincidence that Dublin football clubs have slipped away just as the Dublin gaelic football team has dominated their sport?

Perhaps too much shouldn't be read into the last couple of seasons for Dublin clubs, as the league has been dominated by Dundalk and Cork City. The former were champions for 3 seasons and runners-up last year. The latter were runners-up for 3 seasons before their breakthrough last season. These clubs have been able to reinvest money earned from European competition and player transfers to the UK to maintain their hold on the best playing talent in Ireland and keep ahead of any chasing pack.

The distribution of clubs outside of Dublin, and greater success for those clubs, can only be good for the sustainability of the league. It remains to be seen if Dublin clubs can be revitalised to challenge again. The sports economist in me wants to see strong Dublin clubs, because competitive balance and regional balance are good for the league. The Limerick FC fan in me however wants to see Munster dominance for a while.
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by Declan Jordan

Any cursory analysis of sports would demonstrate that there are spatial or geographical differences in the performance of sports clubs or athletes, and in the popularity and participation of various sports.

What is striking about the current Winter Olympics is the concentration of competitors and medallists among a smaller number of countries than the Summer Olympics. This is hardly surprising given that some countries have an advantage in winter sports because they see lots of snow in winter. Ireland will never be a powerhouse in men's snowboarding or women's mogul.

Even in popular sports that do not require specific climactic conditions, like football or rugby, there are spatial concentrations in participation and performance. Within many football leagues there are persistent high performing clubs and at international level there are some countries who consistently excel. In 20 years of the FIFA World Cup, only 12 different teams have played in the final, with just 8 different winners.

It is surprising to me that there has not been greater application of spatial analysis to sports performance. To date, most academic literature focused on the spatial aspects of sports have been concerned with the localised impacts of sports clubs or the hosting of large sports events. That is the literature has tended to look at the effect of sports on locations, rather than the effect of location on sports.

In a recent paper in Regional Studies, Justin Doran and I examined the effect of geographic proximity between clubs on performance in the English football League over 21 seasons. We tested for spatial interdependence, that is that a given club would perform better if it is nearer to a high-performing club and worse if it is near a poorly performing club, all other things being equal. We controlled for club wealth, managerial churn, and other locational factors, such as location in London and population density. 

The map on the left shows the location of all clubs that have played in the English football leagues in every season between 1993 and 2013, weighted by average performance. Performance is measured by end of season position. More detail is available in the paper.

We found that location matters for performance, even after controlling for those other factors. We found that "clubs perform better when they are located closer to other well-performing clubs, and the poor performance of some clubs is explained by the relatively poor performance of close clubs. This suggests that location matters for performance in English football, just as it has been found to matter in other sectors, even though clubs are largely immobile, do not share locally provided intermediate inputs, and rely (increasingly) on global labour markets rather than on local labour markets".

There is, in my view, a potential rich research agenda on the effects of location on sports performance.

To tap into this agenda I am co-convening a special session on Spatial Aspects of Sports Performance at the Annual Congress of the European Regional Science Association (ERSA) in Cork at the end of August. My co-conveners are Robbie Butler of this parish and Paulo Mourao of the University of Minho. Details of the call for papers for the special session can be accessed here. It is intended that the special session could lead to a special issue in REGION, the journal of ERSA. 

If you would like to take part please submit an abstract proposal by the deadline of February 28.

by Declan Jordan

The Irish rugby team is currently two games into their three game Autumn Series, with victories over South Africa and Fiji. The final game is against Argentina this coming Saturday. A lot of attention has focused on the inclusion in the Irish squad, and the team for the opening game against the Springboks, of Bundee Aki. He plays for Irish provincial side Connacht and qualifies to play for Ireland through the residency rule. This rule allows players to represent a country if they have lived in that country for three years.

The period of residency will extend to five years from 2020.

Neil Francis, a former Irish international and now a media analyst, was very vocal in his criticism of the selection of Aki. He wrote “It is wrong, irrespective of how good he is, that an Irishman born and bred here should sit on the sideline while somebody who has no connection whatsoever with this country, other than drawing a large wage, takes his place”. He also said “The prime criteria for being selected to play for Ireland is that you be Irish above all other things. You can be committed to the cause, but you can be paid to be committed to the cause. You can learn the anthem. You can die for the jersey. Pick a jersey, any jersey and I will die for it. You can quote rule 8 to me as long as you like but you can't trade out your heritage”.

Ewan McKenna wrote that the residency rule is a form of financial doping.

Bundee Aki is not the first player to qualify and be selected by Ireland under the residency rule. CJ Stander’s and Jared Payne’s inclusion have also been questioned. In the Irish squad for the Autumn Series there are several Irish players born outside of Ireland. It’s unclear where this leaves Neil Francis’ suggestion that we should always favour an “Irishman born and bred”. As well as Stander and Aki, those born outside of Ireland include Ultan Dillane, Kieran Treadwell, Joey Carbery, Kieran Marmion, CJ Stander, and Rob Herring. Some have Irish parents and came to Ireland when young, such as Dillane and Carbery. Treadwell and Marmion have Irish parents but did not go to school in Ireland.

There are at least two issues being raised here. The first is what makes somebody Irish. Is a player born in, say, the US whose grandfather left Ireland as a child and who has never visited Ireland ‘more Irish’ than a player who has chosen to spend a substantial portion of his career in Ireland, married an Irish person, and raising a young family born in Ireland? The latter case describes Jared Payne. Identity is becoming a more complex concept as the world becomes more integrated. There is no clear way of defining Irishness, and it is getting even more difficult.

Second is the issue of “financial doping”. This is alarmist. Doping is associated with rule breaking. There are no rules being broken. The residency requirements apply to all countries and many countries use them more than Ireland. The difficulty in individual cases means it is good for World Rugby to set clear rules on eligibility.
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There is a more worrying development into which the furore over “heritage” and “Irishness” feeds. Ireland is a small country with a large diaspora. There are Irish people all over the world. Many families were forced to leave Ireland to get jobs and/or to escape a repressive social climate. Should their children and grandchildren be considered less Irish than the descendants of those who remained? The Irish football team has a long history of selecting players (in line with the rules on eligibility from FIFA) who have at least one Irish grandparent and have no other connection with the country. In the recent squad for the play off against Denmark, 10 of the 26 players were born outside of Ireland.

Scott Hogan is the most recent new recruit that fits that bill. In Irish football there has rarely been any controversy that these players are less Irish than those born here. However, Cyrus Christie has revealed the racist abuse he has received following Ireland’s disappointing defeat against Denmark in the World Cup playoff. He has revealed this has been going on throughout the campaign and includes calls for him to go back to “where he came from”. It is telling that white players born outside Ireland are not told that.

The terms of ‘heritage’, ‘blood’, and ‘born and bred’ being used in reference to a player’s chosen identity open the door to those who feel some, because of their ethnicity, are less than Irish. If a player chooses to play for Ireland we should welcome him or her as one of our own.

by Declan Jordan

The Regional Science Association International - British and Irish Section hosts its annual conference in late August. Next year I am hoping to organise a special session on the spatial aspects of sports performance and the spatial impact of sports investment. The 46th annual RSAIBIS Conference will take place in 2017 in Harrogate in Yorkshire on August 23rd and 24th. This is a week before the European Sports Economists Association Conference in Paderborn.

That economic activity tends to concentrate across locations is a now a well-observed stylised fact. Regional economics has a long-standing literature on the effects of location on business performance (using an array of measures), economic growth, well-being, and This literature considers the impact of place on economic, and the impact of the activities of economic agents on the place in which they are located.

To date, there is a lack of spatial analysis of sports performance, management, and development. This is despite the clear differences in participation, popularity, and performance of different sports across space. Also, within individual sports there are differences in performance of clubs in different locations, and the extent to which this is facilitated by the characteristics of the location is under-researched. Most spatial analyses involving sport have focused on the impact on local or regional effects of large sports-related infrastructural or mega-event investments. 

If you would like further information about the special session and/or would like to submit an abstract please contact me as session organiser at d.jordan@ucc.ie.

by Declan Jordan

​One of the explanations for the persistence in relative age effects in sport is the physiological benefits that players born closer to the age cut-off for under-age competition (usually earlier in a calendar year) have over players born later in the period. At a young age this can mean up to almost a year in the development of players in the same age category. This physiological advantage may be compounded by the advantages of getting more game time and subsequently more coaching. This could mean some young players dropping out of the game, leading to a persistent age effect.

In football this physiological difference may be more beneficial in different positions. For example, goalkeepers tend to be taller than outfield players, and defenders also tend to be taller and bigger than midfielders and attackers (we can of course think of many midfielders and attackers that are tall and big).

The graphs below show the breakdown of quarter of birth for elite under-17 footballers - i.e. those representing their countries at FIFA U-17 World Cup Finals between 2007 and 2014. There are four tournaments each for male and female players over the period. The data comes from FIFA and player position is designated on the website for each tournament.

The figures show, from the flatter distribution of the female players, that relative age effects are far more pronounced for males than for females.   

However, within each cohort there is no difference in the relative age effect across different positions. This means that the proportion of players in each cohort born in each quarter of the calendar year is similar to proportions in each field position. This suggests that physiological differences at early stages of development may affect the likelihood of selection (and subsequent coaching attention) in every position. Unlike rugby, it seems there isn't a position for all body shapes in football. Perhaps an interesting question would be to look at relative age effects by position in a sport like rugby, where physical size matters for different positions.

by Declan Jordan

The news that broke recently that all but two of Nigeria's Under-17 first team failed age tests for the forthcoming African Cup of Nations was shocking, but not surprising. Nigeria have been remarkably successful in the last decade at U-17 level. Nigeria won the U-17 World Cup in the last two tournaments in 2013 and 2015. They were runners-up in 2009 (when they hosted the tournament) and won as well in 2007. They have won the competition 5 times in all.

However, there have been question marks about Nigerian players' true ages for many years now. Indeed there are strong suspicions that African football,and to a lesser extent other regions, have flouted the age rules for many years. In the 2013 tournament, 3 players from each of Morocco, Congo, and Nigeria were sent home from the U17 World Cup for failing the age test. In 2009 MRI bone scans were introduced to test players were the age they claimed to be.

It may not be surprising that countries would want to use older players, since there is a physical advantage for older players in underage tournaments. Indeed, there is a substantial literature on the 'relative age effect', a topic on which my colleagues on this blog have published research. FIFA rules dictate that a player is eligible for a competition if he or she was born in the designated calendar year, so for the U17 tournament in 2015 players must have been born on or after 1 January 1998 (17 years previously). This means players born earlier in the year (in January for example) can have up to 12 months age advantage (and associated physical advantage) - details on player eligibility is available on page 20 here. There is now substantial evidence that football squads are over-represented by players born in the early months of a calendar year relative to the general population.

What might be expected is that countries who are looking to enter players who are older than they actually are is that they would state an age earlier in the calendar year. For example, in this article it is reported that the Syrian squad for the U19 World Cup in 2012 included six players born January 1, 1993 and that the entire team had January birth dates. That approach seems to be a little bit obvious of course, so perhaps it would be better not to draw attention to your squad by spreading the month of birth out.

The graphs below show the profile of month of birth (by quarter) for four editions of Men's and Women's U-17 World Cup Finals from 2007 to 2014. There are 24 countries in the Men's World Cup and 16 in the Women's. It is noticeable that the age dispersion is greater for women, more players are born in the later quarters of the year (the difference is statistically significant). The graphs show quite a remarkable difference between the dispersion for Nigerian squads and other squads (excluding Nigeria). Nigeria appeared in all of the four Women's Finals and three of the four Men's Finals. The graphs show that Nigeria had a statistically different month of birth distribution than the average of the other countries.

Extending the analysis to look at regional differences in relative age effects, the tables below show the classification of players by the half of the year in which they were born (January to June or July to December) for each global region.

Africa stands out as the only continent that shows a greater proportion of players born in the second half of the calendar year (the only exception is Oceania for the Women's Finals). The proportion born in the second half of the year is higher for African countries in the Women's Finals. Again, the difference between regions for men and women is statistically significant. 

It is difficult to know the reasons for Africa's exceptional result. If age fraud is a substantial problem there then perhaps the ages being registered are designed to deflect attention by having much less January birthdates. It may be that the birthdate registered is less important where it is different than an actual birthdate. In the absence of age fraud, perhaps there is less physical difference between African athletes of less than a year's age difference, or perhaps African football has avoided the traps of other countries that tend to select more older players and thereby lose younger players to the game. These latter explanations though would likely result in a flat distribution (similar to the dispersion of months of birth in the general population) rather than having such a large proportion in the second half and final quarter of the calendar year.