The aim of the paper is to interpret and examine the importance of players’
development in professional football. The paper defines professional sport,
transfer market, superstar effect and main business operation of football.
Professional football teams mostly prefer sport aims instead of financial
aims. They invest huge part of their revenues to wages transfers of players,
in order to improve their sport competitiveness. Reviewing international
papers, this study seeks to answer the following question: how investments
in human capital influence the sport and financial competitiveness of sport
companies. In the examined major European championships (German,
Italian, English and Spanish) positive correlation is justified between the
wages, the individual performance, the team performance and the revenues
of sport companies by many researchers. Increasing the amount invested
to transfers and wages implies higher revenues, however it does not imply
the increasing of profit due to the elevated personnel costs. According to
the UEFA’s studies European clubs are characterized by increasing debt. The
greatest part of expenses consists of signing and paying players, which
sheds light on the most important points of the business operation of
international football. This has been proved in several international studies,
the findings of which the paper is going to summarize in this exploratory
study. Sport companies should define both their main strategy aims and
their sport aims in accordance with their limited financial capacities. A
conscious and well-planned management of human capital could lead to a
long-term presence in leading championships and to the realization of both
financial and sport aims of the club.
