Through empirical research, this paper studies the impact of Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) on European football clubs and whether transitioning to public ownership is a desirable path for football clubs to follow. Research was carried out using a unique panel dataset of 19 publicly listed European football clubs from 9 national leagues. The study finds that IPOs do not lead to positive returns for a football club in terms of on-field performance and is not the best path to follow in order to assure the future success of a football club financially.