Financial Inequality among Firms: Globalization and the Concentration of Money and Success in European Football

Football has an enormous following in Europe with more than 100 million fans in the big five European markets alone and numerous more across the continent. It is also insightful from an economics point of view. At the core, it represents a market in which all firms compete domestically and a small subset of them sells its products and services on an international market as well. Furthermore, football is characterized by workers of different skill level, the best of which are highly mobile across countries.
In the present study, we examine two features of this market. Using a novel data set, we first document the large and increasing financial inequality among European football clubs. Subsequently, we show how strongly the inequality in financial means correlates with clubs' performance and results.