By John Considine

Declan Rice is the latest, and most high profile, of the sports people making the headlines in 2018 because of their decisions regarding their sporting nationality.  A few of those wearing the Irish colours at the European Championships raised an eyebrow or two.  And the issue about who should, or should not, be playing for the Irish rugby team raised its head earlier in the year.  It can be emotive stuff.

Given the topicality of the issue, I want to take the opportunity to highlight a seminal case in sports law.  The importance of the case arises because it addresses issues about the boundary between sport and economics.  One where economics tends to dominate sporting issues.  Like the Bosman case, this case is an important one in European sport law.

The 1974 case involved a sport where cyclists are lead out, or paced, by motorcyclists.  In almost all cases the motorcyclist is paid by cyclist and broadly follows the direction of the cyclist.  When it came to the motor-paced World Cycling Championships, it was decreed that the cyclist and the pacer needed to be the same nationality.  Such a rule caused difficulties for the famous Dutch pacers Bruno Walrave and Noppie Koch who frequently teamed up with cyclists of other nationalities.  Walrave and Koch took the issue to the Courts in the Netherlands and it was sent to Europe for clarification.

The key issue in the case was the definition of the team.  It was noted that persons attached to the team but who do not take part in the competition could not be regarded as part of the team.  A number of grounds were considered important including the technical characteristics of the activity in question and the frequency of participation in the team.  An important consideration was the distribution of prize money.  Given that prizes were given to both the pacemaker and cyclist, Walrave and Koch were on their way to winning the case.

Once a sporting activity becomes an economic activity is becomes subject to the EU Treaty (although there is plenty of fuzziness about what constitutes an economic activity).  An important feature of the Walrave and Koch case is that nationality was accepted as grounds for defining a team.  Having an Irish team comprising of only "Irish"  players is acceptable.  It suggested there is a sporting realm where EU Treaties do not apply.  The case may have shown that pacers are part of a motor-paced cycling team but it also clarified that there is such a thing as a national team.

The decision has a large amount of dispassionate logic to it.  It has more economic logic than sporting passion.  The same cannot, and possible should not, be said about the topical coverage of the Declan Rice saga.

By Robbie Butler

For those of us living in the UK and Ireland live action from Spain's La Liga is something we have grown accustomed to over the past two decades. Messi, Ronaldo, Bale, etc. were regularly seen on Sunday nights as top Spanish clubs battled for precious league points. Alas, for those of us with Sky Sports' subscriptions, this is now a thing of the past. And like much of the movement in sports broadcasting, La Liga along with the Chinese Super League, DFB-Pokal (German Cup), Serie A, Eredivisie and Sweden's ​Allsvenskan have all been bought by Eleven Sports.

Established in 2015, Wikipedia states that "Eleven Sports is a multinational group of sports television channels. Based in the United Kingdom, it is owned by Andrea Radrizzani—executive of the sports marketing agency MP & Silva—and The Channel Company. Eleven Sports' business model centres around the acquisition of major international sports rights in smaller countries. The company operates linear television and/or digital services in Belgium, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, Taiwan, and the United States". From our perspective on these islands, this means watching sports content online via smartphone, tablet, smart TV, etc. 

Recently, we had a paper published in the Journal of Sports Economics which examines the 2006 European Commission ruling, that ended the BSkyB Broadcasting monopoly on the English Premier League, and the impact on consumer prices. While our focus is solely on the Premier League, the loss of La Liga from the Sky Sports offering is important, and further evidence that this market is moving to a place that might not be advantageous to consumers despite the appearance of more competition. Rewind to 2012. Sky Sports have rights to broadcast La Liga, the UEFA Champions League and 115 Premier League games. The cost per month for a UK customer was around £23 or €35 for Irish customers.

What has competition in the upstream market done since then to prices paid by customers downstream? 

As of today, the broadcasting rights for La Liga, the UEFA Champions League and the bulk of Premier League lies with three different providers; Eleven Sport, BT Sport and Sky Sports. The 2012 customer, if they wish to continue watching La Liga, the UEFA Champions League and (now 128) Premier League games, have to fork out for three subscriptions fees; Sky Sports £24/€40 per month, BT Sport £21/€25 and Eleven Sports £5/€7 (all approximate fees). This results in a total cost per month of £50/€72, an increase of £27/€37. That more than a 100% increase! 

The 2012 monopoly was much better than the 2018 "competitive" market, which is in effect, three different monopolies operated side-by-side. 

By David Butler

Fifteen years on since the introduction of the February-November (“Summer Soccer”) schedule in the League of Ireland (LOI) this post offers a brief description of our performance in the Champions League competition. Next, I’ll do a similar post for LOI clubs in the Europa Cup.

The table below catalogs the 23 Champions League matches LOI clubs have participated in since the 04/05 competition. While the qualification structure changed in 2010 to create a ‘Champions Route’, I’ve kept the labelling consistent for simplicity– i.e. Round 1 is the first qualification match a team played and so on.

• Six times a LOI club has reached the 2nd phase of qualifying and only twice have we reached the final qualifying round; Shelbourne (04/05) and Dundalk (16/17).

 

• If not for some structural issues, progression could have been more impressive (i.e. Shelbourne relinquished their place in the 07/08 competition). Also, there has been some disappointing results – Shamrock Rovers were deemed to have been handed a slice of luck, drawing FK Ekranas in 12/13 but they were beaten 1-2. The Lithuanians were thrashed 11-0 by Anderlecht in the next round!

 

• Scoring goals is not necessarily a problem in the earlier rounds, although we may not be scoring enough at home – LOI clubs have actually scored more goals away (19) than at home (18). Naturally, these will get harder to score in the later rounds and Robbie Benson’s cracker is the only goal a LOI club has scored over 360 minutes of action in the final qualification phase. 

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• The major challenge is reducing goals conceded away from home (of course this is the challenge for most teams). LOI clubs have conceded 17 goals at home in the qualification phase over the last 15 years but have shipped 44 away from home. On average our representatives concede 2 goals in the away leg.

By Robbie Butler,

During May I wrote about concentration in the Premier League and the vanishing mid-table. In short, the piece covered how the Premier League has broken into two groups; Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur (or the big six) and the rest. It is likely that as the season progresses a similar pattern will emerge, with the big six clubs fighting for the top four positions in the league. 

As an Irish viewer of the Premier League, it is interesting to consider our stake in the race for the title, both today and through time. Ireland has a long and rich history of sending players to top English clubs. Many exports have been extremely successful. This includes the likes of Ronnie Whelan, Kevin Moran, David O'Leary, Niall Quinn, Roy Keane, Dennis Irwin, John O'Shea, Robbie Keane and Damien Duff. 

What has become worrying in more recent times is an absence of an Irish presence in many of these squads. The table below lists the last Irish player to line-out in a competitive game for the first team, for each of the big six clubs, and the final season this happened. There is a mixture of information available.

I​t is pretty obvious that Arsene Wenger had little time for importing Irish players. Graham Barrett was the last player to line out for the first team. His final League appearance, of which there were just 2, came in the 1999-2000 season. Joe O'Cearuill did make an appearance for Ireland in 2007 while on Arsenal's books, but he never appeared in the first team. O'Cearuill now plays for Haringey Borough in the Isthmian League Premier Division.

Chelsea's last Irish player was the very successful Damien Duff. How time flies. It is now 10 years since Duff wore the Blue of the west London club.

Despite having very strong Irish traditions, both Liverpool and Spurs are heading in the direction of Chelsea. Robbie Keane was the last Irish player to line out for both, in 2009 and 2011 respectively. Shay Given left Man City the same year as Keane left Spurs, and is the last Irish player to play for the champions. During his time at the club, Richard Dunne and Stephen Ireland also wore the sky blue.

Probably the most worrying is Manchester United. A club that have had more Irish internationals than any other top flight club in England. Since Denis Irwin signed in 1990, there had been a constant Irish presence in the senior squad. This ended in 2013 when Robbie Brady left for Hull City, having made just one first team appearance for the Red Devils.   

However, hope springs eternal. This season two Irish players can be considered to be on the first team books (others are in U23 and youth squads) although they have not yet recorded a competitive first-team appearance. Interestingly, both are goalkeepers. Cork's Caoimhin Kelleher made his first team debut for Liverpool this summer, as part of the club's US tour. Manchester United also hold Kieran O'Hara in their ranks. The goalkeeper is currently on loan at Macclesfield Town. Corey Whelan and Conor Masterson (both Liverpool) are others on the fringes of the first team. Troy Parrott of Tottenham (at just 17) is another very promising prospect. Most recently, Shamrock Rover's have agreed to sell their 16 year old goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu to Man City for a reported initial fee of €400,000. He is due to join next summer when his schooling ends. 

Hopefully, it will not be too long before the likes of Parrott, Kelleher and O'Hara replace the names Keane and Brady above, and continue Ireland's long tradition of sending players to top English clubs. 

By John Considine

Yesterday, as the minor hurlers of Galway and Kilkenny battled for the All-Ireland title, as the senior hurlers of Limerick and Galway were preparing to do battle, and as more than 82,000 spectators had their attention focused on Croke Park, RTE Radio 1 broadcast a neat 10 minute report on the future of the ash hurley.  The wonders of technology means that those who missed the live broadcast can hear the report at their leisure (here).

Central to the report was ash dieback disease (Chalara) and the potential for carbon fibre hurleys to replace the ash stick.  It is something that has surfaced in the popular media regularly since 2012 (including on this blog, e.g. here).  The reporter, John Burke, says that there are approximately 350,000 hurleys required annually and that the industry is worth €8m-€10m.

International trade and the importation of ash is briefly discussed in the report, e.g. the importation of ash planks for hurley making.  A broader discussion is needed.  Some believe that it was the importation of ash plants (rather than planks) that brought the disease to Ireland.  However, as an airborne disease, it is possible that the disease arrived by a more "natural" route.  The international trade in ash plants is one source of danger (which has since been addressed to a large degree).  However, there is a bigger threat and one that is not commonly understood.  It is international trade of almost any sort.

One of the books I read this summer was The Ash Tree by Oliver Rackham.  It filled me with a mixture of pessimism and optimism for the future of the ash tree.  The optimism comes from his discussion of the ways that trees react to disease.  The discussion of the devastation of the (Dutch) Elm Disease is worth reading.  Rackham says it is too early to tell exactly the implications of the ash dieback disease but he leaves room for hope.  Yet, there is a sense of foreboding when he discusses the Emerald Ash Borer.  The beetle is described as one of the most feared on the planet.  The beetle has not yet made its way to Great Britain and the island of Ireland.  But it sounds like it is only a matter of time.  When this happens, someone will be asked to write another book about the ash tree - just as Rackham was asked to write The Ash Tree when the ash dieback disease was first noticed in Britain in 2012.  To paraphrase Rackham, it seems the stable door can only be bolted when the plant pathologists have certified that the horse has gone.

Unfortunately, the authorities seem to be blind to the risk.  According to Rackham, the UK Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs "produced 34 pages of verbiage on Chalara, the No.2 threat to ash trees that has got here and is uncontrollable, without one mention of Emerald Ash Borer, the No.1 threat, that could yet be kept out" (p.163).  He is unsurprised.  He points out that, at a conference in Ireland during 2004, he suggested that the Irish could do something to prevent the arrival of ash dieback but the "man from the Ministry got up and bleated that nothing could be done because this would restrict trade and the World Trade Organisation would not allow it" (p.162).

Despite Rackham's hope that Emerald Ash Borer can "be kept out", it seems that its arrival on our shores is probably an accident waiting to happen.  It is believed that the beetle made its way to the US in a consignment of car parts.  The impact has been devastating.  It was almost impossible to see that happening and it is almost as difficult to prevent.  But, it seems it is a price we are destined to pay for the benefits of international trade.

By David Butler

This is the fifth season where we will follow the pundit to consider the predictive success of Sky Sports pundit Paul Merson and BBC pundit Mark Lawrenson for English Premier League matches.

A similar pattern has emerged over the past few seasons – in any given gameweek the pundits typically call half of the outcomes correctly. Typically they get one score line correct too.  For 17/18 season if you were to place €1 on each of their score line predictions, Lawrenson would have turned a profit of €58.81 by predicting 12% of the score lines correctly. Following Merson's score line estimates with a €1 stake per match rendered a loss of -€47.77.

The table below is for the first week of fixtures for this season based on a €1 stake. I look at betting on the score lines suggested by the pundits and also just on the outcomes.

By John Considine.

There were important competition structure changes introduced to both hurling and gaelic football in 2018.  Both sporting codes saw a round-robin element introduced.  The hurling competition changed to a structure that much of the sporting world recognises.  The first stage of the competition is now round-robin and the second stage of the competition is knockout.  It is not dissimilar to the competition structure in the major US sports where there is a regular and post-season part.  The new gaelic football format has a round-robin element sandwiched between two knockout stages.

Many team sporting competitions end with a knock-out component.  The round-robin gives fixity-of-fixtures and the knockout element helps build excitement for the fans.

The purpose of this post is to quantify the implication for spectators numbers, i.e. those passing through the turnstiles (TV audiences are another matter).  What follows are the numbers for the Munster senior hurling competition.  A similar analysis can be performed for the Leinster competition.

The 2018 change to the competition structure of the Munster Senior Hurling Championship had the expected impact on attendances.  By moving to a round-robin structure the number of games increased and so too did the total attendance.  The 2017 competition had 4 games, namely, a quarter-final, two semi-finals, and a final.  A total of 127,992 spectators passed through the turnstiles.  The 2018 competition had 11 games.  There were 10 round-robin games and a final.  There were 248,809 spectators for these 11 games.  The average number of spectators per game declined while the overall numbers increased.

It is not possible to say much more because the 11 games in the 2018 were played at four different venues with varying capacity constraints.  For example, the game between Limerick and Clare was played in Ennis with the capacity limited to under 19,000.  It is probably that over 30,000 would have attended if the stadium could have accommodated them.  Similarly, the Waterford game against Tipperary might have attracted closer to 20,000 if there was a stadium in Waterford with that capacity.  By contrast, all four of the games in the 2017 championship were played in Thurles.

The change "worked" in Munster because the county teams are close to each other on the field and geographically.  The experiment is likely to survive.  The evidence is less clear cut for the new football round-robin.

By Robbie Butler

For the first time in many years, September will not see the traditional commencement or continuation of a UEFA qualifying group for a major championships. Instead next month UEFA members will take a step into the unknown with the start of the UEFA Nations League.

This new format appears to have two main purposes; the elimination of friendly matches from the fixture calendar; and secondly, offering an entry point to the 2020 UEFA European Championships. While the former is very much welcome, the latter might be less so given the competition structure of the new league. 

With 55 teams set to take part, countries will be divided into four groups based on international performance over the past number of years. Group A includes the likes of Belgium, France and Germany. The Republic of Ireland are in Group B (second-tier) along with countries such as Russia and Sweden. Group C contains weaker nations again such as Bulgaria, Finland and Albania, while Group D comprises of the traditionally weakest teams such as Malta, Latvia and San Marino. 

The good news for the minnows is that they not only get to play one another, and therefore have a golden opportunity to register a rare international win, the winner of this group also qualifies for the 2020 European Championships. This poses an obvious question? Is a country better-off targeting a place in Group D rather than Group C? This logic can apply to Group C/B and Group B/A. 

It will be interest to see how this plays out in the months and years ahead. It may be that some tweaking of the competition structure is required. This is certainly not unusual for new competitions.

By Sean O Connor
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Designing a methodology to quantify performance can be open to debate. Individuals can have different preferences of what should be more important when measuring how a team has performed. For instance, in a cup competition, should a strong team progressing to a semi-final be seen as performing better than a weaker team progressing to a quarter final, but knocking an extremely strong team out on the way?

Even the official ranking methodology utilised by FIFA to quantify international team performance can be open to criticism, particularly when you read stories about how teams such as Wales were able to rise up the rankings by forgoing friendly games.

Nonetheless, this post attempts to quantify how teams in this summer’s World Cup performed utilising an experimental methodology. The methodology can be summarised as follows.

World Cup performance in a game is based on the following;

• 3 points are awarded for each win in the group stage and knockout stage.
• 1 point is given for a draw for both teams.
• 0.5 points is given if a team is knocked out in penalties in the group stage.
• Winning the 3rd and 4th place play-off is only worth 2.5 points
• Winning the final is worth 3.5 points
• 0 points are given for a loss in 90 minutes in the group or knockout stage.
• I control for goals scored and conceded.
• I control for the team and opponents strength by using the FIFA ranking points given out on the June 7th 2018.

The method to calculate a score in a game is as follows;

Points for game i = (((Points in game after final whistle j + (Goals scored – Less Goals conceded)) * (FIFA Ranking of team j – (+/- Difference in FIFA Ranking of Opposition))

Prior to presenting the results here are some examples of calculating scores.

In the opening game of the tournament, Russia beat Egypt 5-0. For the latest FIFA rankings, Russia had 493 points, while Egypt had 465, therefore Russia where 28 points higher than Egypt. Russia’s points accumulated for this game would have been the following;(((3+ (5-0))*(493-28)) Russia would have gained 3,720 points for this game.

For the thrilling 3-3 between Spain and Portugal, Portugal would have accumulated 1,126 points, while Spain would have been given 1,274. The difference for this is that Portugal is considered a stronger side to Spain in the FIFA rankings. The Figure below plots team performance based on the methodology described above.

The red bars indicate the teams which progressed to the knockout stages, while the blue bars highlight those who left after the group games. According to the methodology adopted here, France and Belgium performed strongest at this World Cup. South Korea performed better than many teams who reached the knockout stages. This high ranking is no doubt due to their clean sheet victory over Germany and the circa 1,000 point difference between the two teams in the FIFA ranking charts.

Like all methodologies’ the metrics generated here has flaws, namely it gives no credit to poor teams who may hold a very good team to a narrow defeat. Moreover, two strong teams drawing or one beating another is has more a less the same impact of two weak teams drawing or beating one another. Similarly, it would be worthwhile to control for a countries population, given how larger countries tend to outperform smaller ones, given the pool of talent they have to choose from. Future posts, may try to account for this, along with control for other factors.   

By David Butler

Fulham recently signed striker Aleksandar Mitrovic for a reported £22m transfer fee from Newcastle. Mitrovic scored 12 goals in 20 games in the 17/18 Championship while on loan at Fulham. The Serbian international wasn’t Fulham’s top goal scorer last season but held an impressive goal-to-game ratio.

Stepping up to the Premier League for Championship goalscorers is always a difficult task. While I doubt anyone would expect a Championship player to replicate their form at a higher level, measuring the gap between second and first tier football interests me.

The table below tracks the top goal scorers for promoted clubs since the start of the Premier League. Each player’s goal to game (GTG) ratio for the season in which they are promoted (Tier 2 - GTG Ratio) is compared to their Premier League goal to game ratio for their first season in the top flight (Tier 1 - GTG Ratio). Some players are excluded as they were transferred out, their contract expired or they incurred a serious injury (e.g. Tommy Moonie, David Speedie, Iwan Roberts and Svetoslav Todorov). For two others I couldn’t get the data from Soccerbase.com (Stan Collymore and Gifton Noel-Williams).  
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With the exception of Andy Carroll (Newcastle), all of the other promoted top goalscorers saw a decrease in their GTG ratio when promoted. This would be expected, and is probably due to various factors associated with playing at a higher level, some of which may not be solely down to the individual in question (i.e. clubs may bring in new talent that take penalties etc.) 

Some interesting cases arise. John McGinlay (Bolton) seems to be one of the first tier-two goalscorers that just couldn’t replicate his early form in the Premier League. From time-to-time we see these interesting cases, where prolific goalscorers at a tier two level, can’t make the grade. Twice McGinlay was top goalscorer for Bolton during promotion seasons, with GTG ratios of 0.43 and 0.61. These fell to 0.19 and 0.20 respectively upon promotion. Bolton played in the 95/96 season and McGinlay was sold during the 97/98 Premier League campaign – perhaps the club learned from past mistakes.

Despite the GTG ratio decline some players still stepped up to the mark in the Premier League – Charlie Austin (QPR), Andy Johnson (Crystal Palace) and, of course, Kevin Phillips (Sunderland) are examples of players with an impressive GTG ratio following promotion. Other scored plenty of goals too in their first season despite having more game time. Examples include Dean Sturridge (Derby), Chris Armstrong (Crystal Palace), Matt Jansen (Blackburn), Michael Ricketts (Bolton), Marlon Harewood (West Ham) and Grant Holt (Norwich).

At the other end of the spectrum, several top goal scorers for promoted clubs have tanked spectacularly in terms of appearances and GTG ratio; Craig Maskell (Swindon) and David Connolly (Sunderland) both failed to score with their promoted club but neither received much of an opportunity. Graham Dorrans (WBA), Abel Taarabt (QPR), and last season Dwight Gayle (Newcastle) and Elias Kachunga (Huddersfield), are examples of goalscorers at a Championship level who appeared plenty of times but didn’t come anywhere close to replicating the goals they scored the previous season.

Perhaps others are victims of their own success. Pierre van Hooijdonk stand outs. The Dutchman has one of the most impressive tier-two records from the list, scoring 34 goals in 46 games when Nottingham Forrest were promoted from the second tier. Upon promotion, van Hooijdonk went on strike due to the on-goings at the club and only agreed to return in November. He didn’t play as much and scored just 7 times. Forrest duly finished bottom.

One final case is noteworthy; that of Marcus Stewart (Sunderland). In the 2004-2005 Championship season, Stewart fired the Black Cats to promotion scoring 17 goals in 46 appearances. The story goes however that at 33, Stewart  decided he was too old to play Premier League football, and instead opted to join Bristol City. 

While the GTG ratio’s are dispersed, on average, promoted top goalscorers are scoring one goal in just over every two games at a tier-two level. Once promoted to the Premier League, the average falls to one goal in just over every four games. Eyeballing the data, there doesn’t seem to be any trend. It’s not as if GTG ratio’s for these players are following any pattern over time.

With this in mind, it will be interesting to keep an eye on Mitrovic this season and all the top goalscorers for all promoted clubs. Expect Diogo Jota (Wolves), Junior Hoilett (Cardiff) and Ryan Sessegnon (Fulham) to face a tough season.