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 Robbie Butler

Sunday the 16th of August 1992 is somewhat synonymous in the history of English football. It was on that day at 4pm that the top division (re-branded as the Premiership) went behind a pay-wall. Thus Sky Sports Football was born. The rest is history.

From the start of the 2019/20 season 200 live games will be broadcast across three subscription channels; Sky Sports, BT Sport and Amazon's UK Prime Video. These games will be shown at times generally between Friday evening and Monday night.

It is safe to say, the movement from free-to-air to subscription television has been a huge success for the broadcasters, clubs and players. While ardent football fans could probably tell you Teddy Sheringham scored for Nottingham Forrest on that day in August 1992, in a 1-0 win over Liverpool, most GAA fans would probably not know the equivalent day in their sport.

From the first television broadcast of a GAA match in 1962 until 2010, all games were available on free-to-air television in this country. But as all fans of Ireland's indigenous game now know, some of the content can only be viewed on subscription television.

This changed (I believe) on Saturday the 6th of February 2010. At 7.30pm that evening Meath lined out against Armagh in the National Football League in Navan, with the game only available to television viewers on subscription channel Setanta Sports 1. What has happened since has not been as dramatic as the shift in football but rather a slow movement towards subscription coverage. In 2014, Sky Sports joined the party and has since screened 20 live games each summer, 6 of which are exclusive. This will continue until at least 2022.

And what then?

In February 2016, the then director-general of the GAA Páraic Duffy wrote in his annual report to Congress:
“Any restriction that prohibits the GAA from engaging with all interested parties, including subscription TV providers, would seriously reduce our negotiating power and thus our ability to achieve the true worth of our assets, and would inevitably lead to a greatly reduced media-rights income. In what is already a small pool of potential broadcast partners, we must ensure the existence of a genuine market for our games and maintain the option of engaging with all interested parties, regardless of whether they are free-to-air or subscription providers. This flexibility and freedom is crucial if we are to nurture a competitive tender process and thus ensure that the GAA achieves the proper value for its rights."

The Irish Statute Book ensures that all four All-Ireland Finals must be shown free-to-air. Everything else, as things currently stand, is up for grabs. The Munster Hurling Championship; the Super 8s; all eight semi-finals. While we are unlikely to see the dramatic shift that has occurred in football in England, it is reasonable to suggest that the six Championship games currently exclusive to Sky Sports will grow. And this is before National League games are included. You have been warned.

 By David Butler

Last week the Premier League released a statement on Brexit and access to talent in light of the FA's proposal seeking to limit the number of non-homegrown players in senior squads. Media accounts suggest that the FA are aiming for the number of non-homegrown players to be limited to 13 for Premier League clubs – this plan is set in the context of a post-Brexit Premier League. The FA views the proposal as a mechanism to increase opportunities for domestic talent at elite clubs. The Premier League has opposed the idea however citing the absence of evidence linking quotas with improved performance by the national team.

I can understand the view that the Premier League should not be exempt from the implications of Brexit, but I can only see minor benefits of the FA’s proposal.

Introducing a quota on non-homegrown players could have a range of negative effects for the league. On the pitch, it could impact the competitiveness of English clubs in the Champions League if they are prevented from importing elite talent. Off the pitch, it may serve to increase what seems to be an already artificially high price for English talent – this premium may raise further if  the quota is hardened.

At the moment there is plenty of English talent at top clubs and they make it despite intense international competition; Liverpool have twelve English players, Spurs have nine and Manchester City and Manchester United both have seven in their senior squad. There’s an argument that the current English team is one of the best in the Premier League era despite the internationalisation of the league. English players are likely benefiting from the competition and from foreign coaches and players.

The chart below displays the nationality of Premier League players in percentage terms by season based on whether they are English (white bars), from another EU country (light grey bars) or are non-EU (dark grey bars). Yes, there has been a decline in the level of English talent in the league but the trade-off has been a far superior league to that of the 92/93 season. 

There could be some minor benefits if the FA plan was to come into effect. At present there can be a bottleneck in development pathways for young players. Maybe non-English talent that currently sits on the bench for the majority of the season would be replaced by domestic bench warmers?

All in all, it seems that the cons outweigh the pros. The influx of foreign players post Bosman, mostly from other EU countries, is what made the Premier League one of the best products in the world and added to its marketability.  It is not surprising that the Premier League opposes this move given how the clubs and the league in general have benefited greatly from labour mobility. The conclusion of the Premier League's statement is a powerful  reminder of what an incredible industry and export the Premier League is for England - “Our competition is watched in 189 countries, 700,000 visitors to the UK per season attend a match, clubs employ 12,000 full-time staff and Premier League football generates £3.3bn per season in taxes.”

By Stephen Brosnan

Recently, the English national team have been going through a renaissance period. During this summer’s World Cup the country was hit by a wave of optimism as Gareth Southgate led the team to their best placed finish since 1990. Although football didn’t quite make it ‘home’, hope for the future was well and truly restored. England have moved up to 5th in the FIFA World Rankings and last week, the team added to their growing reputation by topping their Nations League group with impressive victories over Spain and Croatia.

Previously I have analysed England squad selection using data from Fantasy Premier League (FPL) (here, here and here). These posts highlight some potential bias towards selection based on reputation rather than form. Gareth Southgate stated from the beginning of his tenure that players "need to be playing regularly" and "be in good form".

Table 1 shows players selected for the England squad that would be included in squad based on FPL points while Table 2 shows the players that would miss out of the squad and their replacements.  

Table 2 shows the players who would miss out on selection and their replacements should selection be based on FPL points. Some surprising selections include Steve Cook (Bournemouth) in place of John Stones. However, this is due mainly to rotation policy at Man City reducing Stone’s overall points. Also, a trade-off exists between selecting the most in-form players while maintaining a balance between youth and experience. Southgate has stated “we're into a fresh cycle of probably not going back to players who've been in before and that we've had a good look at”. This explains the exclusion of the likes of Theo Walcott, Andros Townsend and Aaron Lennon for Harry Winks, Ruben Loftus Cheek and Jessie Lingard.

Southgate seems to have gone for youth at the expense of form in the midfield area. Perhaps coincidentally, this is also one of England’s most problematic areas with a lack of creativity and a dependency on set pieces being identified as potential weakness in the current squad. Overall, Southgate is selecting the best performing players regardless of reputation and this may go a long way in explaining why these players are delivering results. 

By Robbie Butler

This week the Football Association of Ireland parted ways with manager Martin O'Neill and his backroom team. The search now starts for the next the Republic of Ireland manager, who will become the 15th man to manage the national team. The list is illustrious with the likes of John Giles, Jack Charlton and Giovanni Trappatoni all taking charge of the Boys in Green. 

O'Neill achieved considerable success in relative terms. He managed to qualify the  Republic of Ireland for the European Championship Final in 2016 where the team beat Italy in the Group stages, and also recorded a draw against Sweden in Paris.

While these are notable highlights, one that went under the radar was the teams' success in Vienna in November 2016. James McClean's goal that night ensured the Republic of Ireland's first away win in a group game, against a higher seeded team, since 1967.

Performances since haven't reached the same heights but the team's FIFA Ranking has remained quite stable. 

While there was a notable decline under the most recent manager, O'Neill's team has not had an alarming decline. That's said, relegation to Group C of the UEFA Nations League will make qualifying for Euro 2020 more tricky.

By John Considine

Nine groups in the UEFA Nations League are comprised of three teams.  The teams in these group have to play four games over during three international windows.  This means that in each window, one of the teams will have to play two games in this competition.  My gut feeling was that this would place the team playing two UEFA Nations League games at a disadvantage.  Watching the Croatians struggle against England, after a win against Spain earlier in the week, seemed to confirm my expectations.  However, when I checked the data the case was not as compelling.

I only examined the first two international windows.  The third one is currently underway.  It also has games where the incentives have changes based on the results from the earlier games.  Eighteen games were played where one team was competing in its second UEFA Nations League game.  In half of these the team played at home.

It would seem that playing a second game is a problem when it is played away.  The overall results for the group games are given here.  Just over 50% (19/36) result in home wins.

The small number of observations are a problem.  There there are other complications, e.g. was the first game played at home or away.  It will take a little more time to make a solid judgement.

By Robbie Butler

The UEFA Nations League returned last night and will continue over the coming days. For those unfamiliar with the tournament, the competition has been created by UEFA to reduce the number of friendly internationals teams play, and offers an opportunity to qualify for Euro 2020. Unfortunately for the Republic of Ireland we have had little to cheer. Things could change on Monday night when the country travels to Denmark, and a win would lift team moral going into the UEFA European Qualifiers.

The game on Monday night (and those in the Nations League that have preceded it) has one oddity when compared to other Irish international games. It is a competitive fixture that is not available on free-to-air television. The reason this is unusual is down to European Commission rules and the Irish Statute Book.

At present, EU Member States can designate sporting and cultural events as being of major importance to society. Any events so designated should be available on a free-to-air television service.The  Irish Statute Book (2016) currently says "All events deemed to be “of major importance to society for which the right of a qualifying broadcaster to provide coverage on a live basis on free television services should be provided in the public interest”. This list includes, amongst other things,Ireland’s home and away qualifying games in the European Football Championship and the FIFA World Cup Tournaments, and Ireland games in the European Football Championship Finals and FIFA World Cup Finals Tournament.

Effectively, this means all competitive games involving the team must be shown on free-to-air television in the "public interest".

​The Nations League has recently joined the list of UEFA competitions. I wonder if this competition will be added to the Statute Book when reviewed by the Former Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment. Last year the Minister added the "All-Ireland Senior Ladies Gaelic Football and Camogie Finals to the Free to Air designation list with full backing from the Cabinet and the European Commission".

It would seem to make sense for Nations League games to join the list. 

By Robbie Butler

Major League Soccer (MLS) will complete its 23rd season on the 8th of December 2018 when the MLS Cup Final is held. The competition is currently in the semi-final stage with Atlanta United FC, New York Red Bulls, Portland Timbers and Sporting Kansas City all still standing in the competition.

For those unfamiliar with the MLS, the competition design is somewhat different to European soccer leagues. For one the top domestic prize is referred to as a "cup". This is effectively akin to winning the league, but mirrors that of other popular US sports in that there is a regular season, followed by the playoffs. The upside of this approach is that teams finishing as low as 6th in either conference (split east/west) can be crowned winners of the MLS Cup.

This approach has similarities in Europe. The Champions League can be won by finishing as low as 4th in one's domestic league, and second in the qualifying group. The Championship Playoffs in English League Football involve teams placed 3-6 (or 4-7 in League 2) battling it out for promotion. Rugby league's Super League is the closest competition design I can think of in a European context to mirror the soccer in the United States.

Whether you are for or against this competition design, one cannot but marvel at the opportunity for franchises to succeed. Atlanta United are in just their second season of the Eastern Conference of Major League Soccer, yet "The Five Stripes" are within touching distance of a place in the MLS Cup Final. Only New York Red Bulls stand in their way. 

The closed system that is MLS, and most of US sport, somewhat facilities this. Maybe this is the reason why the 23 franchises in the league this year will become 24 once FC Cincinnati join in 2019, and 26 by 2020 once Inter Miami and Nashville join the league. And their chances of success are much higher than in top European leagues. The figure below presents data on the number of league winners in each league since the first MLS season in 1996, and the number of league wins accumulated by the most successful club. 

Major League Soccer is more competitive than any of the top European leagues. As the theory would suggest, open systems with promotion and relegation, tend to foster inequality among teams. Winning the league title may be of far less concern to clubs who fear the threat of relegation. 

On the other hand, in a closed system (such as the MLS or Major League Baseball), in theory each team has equal probability of success (winning the Championship) at the start of the regular season. Maybe this why there have been 12 different MLS Cup Champions since 1996, and just 5 different champions in England, Spain and Italy. 

The system in the US might be much different to Europe but there are certainly things that could be learned. ​I'm sure fans of German and Italian soccer, other than Bayern Munich and Juventus supporters, would agree as the former look to win their seventh title in a row, and Juventus their 8th title on the spin.

By Daragh O'Leary

My favourite sports quote of all time is “the more I practice, the luckier I get”. It was made by South African golfer Gary Player. The quote is brilliant because it sheds light on a much debated topic within sports, the talent vs development debate. The talent side of the debate states that great sportspeople are born with a predisposition towards being good at their sport. The development side subscribe to the view that “great players are made and not born”. The debate tends to polarise people to one side of the fence or the other.

On one hand there are exceptional sportspeople who may be considered “late bloomers” and take longer to develop than others (Jamie Vardy). However, there also seems to be people who were destined for greatness at a very young age (Kylian Mbappé). To try and see which side of the debate is correct I took a look at 18 players from Manchester City’s squad that played Burnley two weeks ago and took note of the age where they first received their international cap, be it at underage or senior level.

Here, receiving an international cap is a proxy for talent being recognised as to receive one you have to be viewed as one of the best, if not the best in your country. The idea here is that if natural talent exists, it should be prevalent and easily observable in the majority of cases from a very young age. Or in other words, if natural talent is the reason people go on to play international football at senior level, then they should have been playing at international level from the year they were eligible to do so. However, this doesn’t seem to be the case in the data.

 If we look at splitting the players into two groups, children (U18) and adults (18 or over) then it’s a 50:50 split. Some player’s talents are recognised from a very young age, David Silva at 15 for example. Whereas some players don’t fully blossom until later into their career, Riyad Mahrez at 23 for example. While it’s nice to see the dispersion of ages at which players made their first international appearance, the findings aren’t conclusive enough to prove which side of the debate is correct.

Half the sample received international caps at a young age, indicating they may have had a natural predisposition toward being good footballers; but the other half were adults by the time they finally received their first international cap, indicating they may be the product of development and practice.

So, is it the case that these “late bloomers” are people who had a natural talent and it layed dormant within them during their childhood? Or is it the case that we perceive people who are good at something at a young age as naturally talented because that’s the most readily available information to us and we just haven’t seen the endless hours they’ve put in in training? This is definitely an area where more research could provide valuable insight.

By John Considine

It is easy to find a variety of Vince Lombardi quotes where the man states that there is a price to be paid for anything worthwhile.  While sportspeople may occasionally forget this sentiment, those involved in sport at any serious level agree with Lombardi.  Those who play Gaelic games are no different.  This can be confirmed by a reading of a recent Economic & Social Research Institute report written by Elish Kelly and colleagues.

The report is titled Playing Senior Inter-County Gaelic Games: Experiences, Realities and Consequences and it presents a huge volume of data on the self-reported experiences of the players.*  Probably my favourite picture in the report is Figure 6.26 (reproduced below).  Allowing for all sorts of potential biases in the responses, it is a pretty impressive endorsement of the experience.  Much of the report detailed the demands on these amateur players but the bottom line was that virtually all respondents agreed with the statement "I am glad I made the choice to play inter-county".

Looking at some of the other responses, it would seem that the price paid was primarily in terms of forgone income.  Figure 6.30 of the report shows that the single biggest reasons for ceasing to play inter-county was to "Focus on Professional Career" (47.6%).  The same percentage (47.6%) said that the area they would like to spend more time on was their Professional Career (Figure 6.20).

The beauty of Figure 6.26 is that it gets to the essence of the issue.  Admittedly, it is being asked after the decision.  However, as Professor Eamon O'Shea said at the launch of the report, there is a revealed preference issue here.  The guys chose to play.  They were prepared to pay the price.

Of course, sportspeople are prepared to haggle about the price (or other elements).  Those who play Gaelic Games successfully lobbied for government funding in the form of grants to players.  I have encountered a few students, from various sports, who initially seek special treatment because of the impact of the sporting endeavours on their academic performance.  (They could do with remembering that Lombardi's words have wider significance - whether it is sporting or academic achievement, "you've got to pay the price".)

The value of the report is that there are concerns about the price paid by inter-county players.  It is important that playing inter-county remains within the price range of most.

​
[* I was a member of the Oversight Committee for the Report.]