Determinants of football players’ valuation: A systematic review

As a result of the growth of the football players' transfer market and the increased availability of data, scholars from different fields have been investigating the topic of the empirical determination of the football players’ valuation, that is, transfer fees or monetary valuation proposed by media, for 30 years. We propose a systematic review of the topic to provide the research community with an overview of the determinants of football players' valuation. Peer-reviewed papers written in English on men's football presenting fully available and interpretable econometrical results were selected. Based on the careful analysis of the 29 selected papers and their empirical models, this study has two main implications. First, it classifies all the independent variables used in the literature to explain or predict football players’ valuation, and proposes a set of core explanatory variables, with associated expected signs, that constitutes the common ground on which to build further research. Second, by presenting the state of the art in the current empirical literature, it highlights the existing gaps and suggests precise future research objectives. From a more general perspective, the review provides empirical insights for researchers interested in the valuation of human resources, signaling theory, market design, or bargaining theory.