Does Foreign Investment Affect Sporting and Managerial Efficiency? The Case of English Football Clubs

The number of foreign owners in football clubs has recently increased in Europe and especially in England. This study aims to analyze whether clubs owned by foreign investors show different parameters of sporting and managerial efficiency. We use data on expected performance (from betting odds), wage costs, and the results of football clubs in the English Premier League (EPL) and English Football League Championship (EFL) over 13 seasons. We estimate different measures of efficiency using three alternative methods: expected vs. actual performance index, nonparametric conditional data envelopment analysis (DEA), and stochastic frontier, while considering foreign ownership as an exogenous factor. Our results suggest that there are not significant differences between domestic-and foreign-owned clubs.