Corporate Governance and Performance in Sports Organisations: The Case of UK Premier Leagues

Malagila, J.K., Zalata, A.M., Ntim, C.G., and Elamer, A.A. (2020). Corporate Governance and Performance in Sports Organisations: The Case of UK Premier Leagues. International Journal of Finance and Economics, Forthcoming.

31 Pages Posted: 14 Jul 2020

See all articles by John Kalimilo Malagila

John Kalimilo Malagila

University of Essex; Southampton Business School

Alaa Zalata

University of Southampton - Southampton Business School

Collins G. Ntim

University of Southampton Business School, UK; University of Southampton

Ahmed A. Elamer

Brunel University London - Brunel Business School; Department of Accounting, Faculty of Commerce, Mansoura University

Date Written: June 21, 2020

Abstract

A considerable amount of accounting, economics and finance studies have investigated the link between corporate governance (CG) and performance in profit and non-profit organisations. This paper departs from the existing literature by investigating the relationship between CG structures and both financial performance (FP, measured as return on assets (ROA) and equity (ROE)) and non-financial performance, measured as league points won (NFP-Points), of sports organisations with specific focus on UK premier leagues’ football (soccer) teams.We collect data relating to CG structures, FP and NFP-Points of football clubs playing in the four UK premier leagues in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales along with the English Championship teams over the 2011-2016 period. We analyse our data relating to 80 football clubs over a 6-year period (generating 397 club-year observations) by running a number of multivariate analyses to test our hypotheses. Our findings are as follows. First, we find that NFP-Points is higher in clubs with larger boards, non-executive directors (NED), CEO role duality, and higher percentage of foreign and/or younger directors, but lower in firms with higher percentage of female directors. Second and by contrast, we find that the relationship between these same set of variables and FP is, however, insignificant except for boards with NED that remained significant and negatively related to ROA. Our findings appear to reflect the prioritisation of on-the-field performance over off-the-field performance by sports organisations. Our evidence is largely robust to using alternative measures and estimation models.

Keywords: economics and finance; corporate governance and performance; popular sport organisations; football/soccer; premier leagues; UK

JEL Classification: G3; G34; G38

Suggested Citation

Malagila, John and Zalata, Alaa and Ntim, Collins G. and Elamer, Ahmed Ahmed, Corporate Governance and Performance in Sports Organisations: The Case of UK Premier Leagues (June 21, 2020). Malagila, J.K., Zalata, A.M., Ntim, C.G., and Elamer, A.A. (2020). Corporate Governance and Performance in Sports Organisations: The Case of UK Premier Leagues. International Journal of Finance and Economics, Forthcoming., Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3632180

John Malagila

University of Essex ( email )

Wivenhoe Park
Colchester, CO4 3SQ
United Kingdom

Southampton Business School ( email )

Faculty of Business, Law and Art
University of Southampton
Southampton, SO17 1BJ
United Kingdom
+442380595318 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://www.southampton.ac.uk/business-school/about/staff/jm1u10.page

Alaa Zalata

University of Southampton - Southampton Business School ( email )

Southampton, SO17 1BJ
United Kingdom

Collins G. Ntim (Contact Author)

University of Southampton Business School, UK ( email )

Southampton Business School
Highfield
Southampton, England SO17 IBJ
United Kingdom
+44 (0) 238059 4285 (Phone)
+44 (0) 238059 3844 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://www.southampton.ac.uk/business-school/about/staff/cgn1n11.page

University of Southampton ( email )

Southampton, SO17 1BJ
United Kingdom

Ahmed Ahmed Elamer

Brunel University London - Brunel Business School ( email )

Kingston Lane
Eastern Gateway Building
Uxbridge, Middlesex UB8 3PH
United Kingdom

Department of Accounting, Faculty of Commerce, Mansoura University ( email )

Faculty of Commerce, Mansoura University
Elgomhouria St.
Mansoura, Mansoura 35516
Egypt

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