Factors Influencing the Change in Football Player Values: the Case of the Football Stock Market

For many years football has been the most popular kind of sport on the planet, and the number of fans of this game is estimated in hundreds of millions of people. However, football is not only a sport, but also a big business in which billions of dollars are circulated, and a significant part of them concerns transfers of players from one club to another. Now the clubs are ready to buy players for hundreds of millions of dollars, so all the issues related to the valuation of the athlete, attract great interest. In this work the problem of changing the value of football player is investigated and the most important factors causing such movements are defined. The research is based on the prices of virtual shares of players that are traded on the football stock market (Football Index). Additionally, a comparison with the market values of players, which are calculated by professional analysts from the International Centre for Sports Studies (CIES) is carried out for identification of differences in estimates between traders and professional specialists. The regression analysis is based on the data of the football players playing in the German football championship. The results of this work can be useful not only for those who are professionally engaged in the studying of questions connected with formation of the value of football players, but also for users of the Football Index trading platform, as it will enable them to make more rational decisions on the formation of their investment portfolio.