The present paper explores the effects of championships won and financial stability of the clubs on share price returns for publicly traded football clubs in Europe. The study uses samples from 2012-2017 of 14 publicly traded clubs on different exchanges such as Borsa Italiana, London Stock Exchange, New York Stock Exchange, Germany Stock Exchange, Paris CAC Index, Borsa Lisbon, Copenhagen Stock Exchange as well as the Turkish Stock Exchange. The initial analysis assesses share price returns’ links with team performance and team financial variables as well as two indices: STOXX 600 Market Index and the STOXX Football Index. Further analysis includes looking at revenues and the different variables that affect returns to see the correlation and understand profitability vs win maximization due to the effect of sugar daddy owners. There appears to be a negative and significant correlation between profit margin and returns, and I also conduct event studies for the biggest transfers of the clubs and conclude that in the short term, there is a significant effect on share prices when transfers occur.

This paper’s aim is to discover the impact of economical, demographic and traditional determinants on clubs’ on-pitch success in UEFA Champions League. Generally it is assumed by people that financially strong clubs tend to win on the pitch most of the time. Is it really true? Is it always the same wealthy teams which win in the end? Football is a type of entertainment and people would like to see games with uncertain outcomes and a balanced competitiveness between two sides. In this way they can enjoy this entertainment. In that case, how uncertain is the outcome and how balanced is the competition in UEFA Champions League? In order to answer all these questions a multiple regression analysis is built including economic, demographic and traditional variables both at club and country level. These mentioned explanatory variables are GDP per capita of the home country, population of the host city, total market value of the team’s players, capacity of the stadium, country’s participation in international tournaments, club’s age, rank of the next best team from the same country and country’s hosting an international tournament. It turned out that financially advantageous clubs which have stadiums with larger capacities and located in more populated cities have more chances of winning than the others. Then again, it is observed that countries’ football tradition and dedication does not have a significant impact on clubs’ on-pitch success in UEFA Champions League.