The performance of football club managers: skill or luck?

This paper evaluates the extent to which the performance of English Premier League football club managers can be attributed to skill or luck when measured separately from the characteristics of the team. We first use a specification that models managerial skill as a fixed effect and we examine the relationship between the number of points earned in league matches and the club’s wage bill, transfer spending, and the extent to which they were hit by absent players through injuries, suspensions or unavailability. We next implement a bootstrapping approach to generate a simulated distribution of average points that could have taken place after the impact of the manager has been removed. The findings suggest that there are a considerable number of highly skilled managers but also several who perform below expectations. The paper proceeds to illustrate how the approach adopted could be used to determine the optimal time for a club to part company with its manager. We are able to identify in advance several managers who the analysis suggests could have been fired earlier and others whose sackings were hard to justify based on their performances.

Does managerial turnover affect football club share prices?

This paper analyses the 53 managerial sackings and resignations from 16 stock exchange listed English football clubs during the nine seasons between 2000/01 and 2008/09. The results demonstrate that, on average, a managerial sacking results in a post-announcement day market-adjusted share price rise of 0.3%, whilst a resignation leads to a drop in share price of 1% that continues for a trading month thereafter, cumulating in a negative abnormal return of over 8% from a trading day before the event. These findings are intuitive, and suggest that sacking a poorly performing manager may be welcomed by the markets as a possible route to better future match performance, while losing a capable manager through resignation, who typically progresses to a superior job, will result in a drop in a club’s share price. The paper also reveals that while the impact of managerial departures on stock price volatilities is less clear-cut, speculation in the newspapers is rife in the build-up to such an event.

International experiential diversity and performance at project organizations: The case of national football teams

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to shed new light on the link between diversity in project teams and team performance by examining the effects of players’ international career diversity on the performance of national football teams. Design/methodology/approach– The paper draws upon the literature on project organizations and experiential diversity in teams. Using data on players’ international career backgrounds and team performance from the FIFA World Cup 2006, the authors test two hypotheses linking experiential diversity in teams and a measure of relative team performance. The dataset includes detailed individual background profiles of the 736 participating players and performance data from the 64 games played at the tournament. Findings– The findings suggest that different types of experiential diversity have contrasting effects on team performance in a time‐limited project team setting. Research limitations/implications– These findings encourage team diversity researchers to further examine the impact of experiential diversity in teams on team process and performance outcomes in future research. Practical implications– The findings particularly highlight the need to carefully manage experiential diversity in project team settings in order to benefit from access to diverse tacit resources, while at the same time avoiding that the integrative capacities of teams becoming overstretched. Originality/value– The paper is a step towards a better understanding of how diversity of individual career backgrounds affects team performance outcomes in project teams.

Football supporters an the negative word of mouth of their rival team's brand

This article has the objective of identifying whether the loyalty for the team has a negative effect on the word of mouth of the rival team’s brand. It has been developed a model based on the works of Fagundes (2013) and Santana and Akel Sobrinho (2010), through the use of Structural Equation Modeling - SEM, which presents three constructions: the identification with the team, the loyalty to the team and the negative word of mouth of the rival’s brand. 528 students from two college were interviewed and it has been identified that the emotional involvement of the supporter with his team reflects on the identification of a supporter by his team (KWON e ARMSTRONG, 2004; KAYNAK, 2008; JORDAN et al., 2014), it is thus formed a loyalty for the team (FUNK and JAMES, 2006). It influences other people in their personal relationships through the negative word of mouth communication.

REFEREE PERSONAL MEANING: PERCEPTION of FOOTBALL OFFICIALS

The aim of this study was to evaluate the personal meaning of refereeing for Portuguese football referees. Participants were 47 football referees from the 1st Portuguese Professional Football League evaluated through an open question: "Write down what refereeing means to you". The analysis was made according to Miles & Huberman (1994) procedures. The 5 categories are: relation with the football; costs of the practice; emotion for the arbitration; social interaction and way of life. The results show that be connected to the world of the football, passion and the relationship with other referees are important motivational factors, with that the referees have a high grade of excitement and pleasure in his labor activity. on the other hand the task of refereeing is generating of stress and burnout.

Coping strategies among brazilian professional and amateur football players

To identify coping strategies used among professional and amateur Brazilian football players. The Ways of Coping Scale (WOCS) was completed by 134 male football players (71 professionals: mean age = 22.77 ± 3.98 years; 63 amateurs: mean age = 17.18 ± 0.84 years) from three teams that participated in the Campeonatos Estaduais da Primeira Divisão (the state championships for the first division of football). There was no significant difference between the two groups in the type of coping strategy they used (e.g., problem-focused, emotion-focused, fantasy thoughts, religious practices and social support). Problem-focused coping was the most frequently used strategy by all of the players and social support was the least frequently used strategy. Both professional and amateur players failed to focus on the development of adequate coping strategies. Further studies are needed to better understand the impact that Brazilian athletes experience has on their choice of coping strategies during pre-competitive and competitive phases of their sport. © JPES.

Voyage en Égypte: as representações do antigo Egito na narrativa de Gustave Flaubert durante o imperialismo francês do século XIX

Pós-graduação em História - FCHS

Football Pregame

Good afternoon! I am John Owens, and it is my good fortune to be Vice President and Vice Chancellor of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Chancellor Harvey Perlman certainly regrets that he cannot be present at today’s pregame reception. His daughter is being recognized at Ak-Sar-Ben in Omaha, and he’s celebrating this very special occasion with his family. And speaking of family, I would like to introduce my wife, Dr. Virginia Owens. This probably is the right time for me to confess that both Virginia and I are graduates of Texas Tech. Now, we want everyone to know that “alumni loyalty” can go just so far… and we always cheer for the Huskers!

Football in the dock: the case of homophobia.

This essay discusses some issues related to homophobia in football. To this was discussed through official documents and literature of the difficulties and challenges in the fight against homophobia in Brazil. From these initial discussions sought to relate the world of "male" and the reproduction of discrimination in football. As a form of analysis came from two authors of the social sciences: Durkheim's concept of anomie, which offers an explanation of why the repression of different (idea of the sacred and profane), and Habermas with the idea of civil society as a construction of mechanisms to fight for a transformation of reality and possibility of dialogue.

[A million football fans in a city of 120,000 inhabitants--a nightmare for emergency medicine and disaster management? Euro 2008 and the "Orange wonder of Berne"]

The 2008 European Football Championship 2008 (Euro 08) is the largest sporting event ever organized in Switzerland. One million visitors came to the city of Berne during the event and the local airport in Bern/Belp registered 261 extra flights. For each football game there were 33,000 fans in the stadium and 100,000 fans in the public viewing zones.The ambulance corps and the Department of Emergency Medicine (ED) at Inselspital, University Hospital Berne, were responsible for basic medical care and emergency medical management. Injuries and illnesses were analyzed by a standardized score (NACA score). The preparation strategy as well as costs and patient numbers are presented in detail.A total of 30 additional ambulance vehicles were used, 4,723 additional working days (one-third medical professionals) were accumulated, 662 ambulance calls were registered and 240 persons needed medical care (62% Swiss, 28% Dutch and 10% other nationalities). Among those needing treatment 51 were treated in 1 of the 4 city hospitals. No injuries with NACA grades VI and VII occurred (NACA I: 4, NACA II: 17, NACA III: 16, NACA IV: 10 and NACA V: 4 patients). The city of Berne compensated the Inselspital Bern with a total of 112,603 Euros for extra medical care costs. The largest amount was spent on security measures (50,300 Euros) and medical staff (medical doctors 22,600 Euros, nurses 29,000 Euros). Because of the poor weather and the exemplary behavior of the fans, the course of events was rather peaceful.