You can look, but don’t touch: competitive balance and dominance in the UEFA Champions League

RAMCHANDANI, Girish, PLUMLEY, Daniel, MONDAL, Sarthak, MILLAR, Robbie and WILSON, Robert (2023). You can look, but don’t touch: competitive balance and dominance in the UEFA Champions League. Soccer and Society.

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Abstract

This paper examines the competitive balance of the Champions League between 1992/93–2019/20 focusing on both the group and knockout stages. The findings show that competitive balance has declined in the Champions League over time and that the competition has begun to be dominated by a select number of clubs. This situation has also worsened in the years following the inception of UEFA Financial Fair Play regulations in 2011. From a sporting economics perspective, the received theory suggests that such a decline in competitive balance could harm the product. If competitive balance continues to decline, the Champions League may face potential future challenges from the attractiveness of the product to broadcasters and commercial partners as well as the continuing emergence of financially dominant super clubs. This could also exacerbate the threat of breakaway European super leagues that would further damage the competition through the potential loss of elite teams within it.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	1504 Commercial Services; 1699 Other Studies in Human Society; 2103 Historical Studies
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1080/14660970.2023.2194512
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Elements
Depositing User:	Symplectic Elements
Date Deposited:	24 Oct 2022 09:56
Last Modified:	25 Apr 2023 15:50
URI:	https://shura.shu.ac.uk/id/eprint/30923

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