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Soccernomics QUOTES

Soccernomics QUOTES

41 " In 2017, three academics—Christian Deutscher, Eugen Dimant, and Brad Humphreys—caused uproar in the German parliament when they published a working paper claiming to have statistical evidence that there were irregular betting patterns associated with two Bundesliga referees officiating between 2011 and 2015. "

― Simon Kuper , Soccernomics

42 " The problem is that there is a lot of randomness in results in the short term. The underlying patterns can only be identified once you let the law of large numbers do its work. "

― Simon Kuper , Soccernomics

43 " Because soccer clubs are the only businesses that get daily publicity without trying to, they treat journalists as humble supplicants instead of as unpaid marketers of the clubs’ brands. The media often retaliate by being mean. This is not very clever of the clubs, because almost all their fans follow them through the media rather than by going to the stadiums. "

― Simon Kuper , Soccernomics

44 " If you’re good at providing schools for everyone, as most democracies are, then you are probably also good at providing good soccer fields and coaches for everyone. "

― Simon Kuper , Soccernomics

45 " His doubts recall Benford’s Law, a theory about the frequency with which digits will appear in data. One implication of this law is that datasets with lots of zeroes at the end often turn out to be fraudulent. "

― Simon Kuper , Soccernomics

46 " Stars of Recent World Cups, or European Championships Are Overvalued The worst time to buy a player is in the summer when he’s just done well at a big tournament. Everyone in the transfer market has seen how good the player is, but he is exhausted and quite likely sated with success. "

― Simon Kuper , Soccernomics

47 " Do you remember being at school and picking sides for a game of football? We do this at Liverpool for the five-a-sides. Diouf was ‘last pick’ within a few weeks. "

― Simon Kuper , Soccernomics

48 " In the US, for instance, a former member of Congress will lobby Congress for whatever company or country will pay him; meanwhile in a poor country, a politician pockets an illegal bribe. "

― Simon Kuper , Soccernomics

49 " It’s sad to say, but it is much easier selling, for example, a crap Brazilian than a brilliant Mexican. The Brazilian gets across the image of happiness, party, carnival. Irrespective of talent, it is very seductive to have a Brazilian in your team. "

― Simon Kuper , Soccernomics

50 " The average player has the ball for only 53.4 seconds every game (according to Chris Carling, the English performance analyst at Lille in France) so any player’s main job is to occupy the right positions for the other eighty-nine minutes and 6.6 seconds. "

― Simon Kuper , Soccernomics

51 " For instance, you need an ethics unit that can investigate wrongdoing and is not under the president’s control—which would imply a big change from the Blatter-era FIFA. "

― Simon Kuper , Soccernomics

52 " The beauty of FIFA’s business is that it’s a monopoly. There is only one World Cup (nobody has ever credibly attempted to start a rival event) and only one global soccer association. "

― Simon Kuper , Soccernomics

53 " If things go wrong, they simply don’t repay their debt, the old directors walk away, and new ones come in promising to sweep up the mess "

― Simon Kuper , Soccernomics

54 " Every international at Lyon is untransferable. Until the offer surpasses by far the amount we had expected. "

― Simon Kuper , Soccernomics

55 " hosting sports events doesn’t make you rich. "

― Simon Kuper , Soccernomics

56 " In most industries, a bad business goes bankrupt, but soccer clubs almost never do. No matter how much money they waste, someone will always bail them out. This is what is known in finance as “moral hazard”: when you know you will be saved no matter how much money you lose, you are free to lose money. "

― Simon Kuper , Soccernomics

57 " Clubs know they cannot operate without opponents, and so unlike in most businesses, the collapse of a rival is not cause for celebration. "

― Simon Kuper , Soccernomics

58 " Not many universities, opera houses, or aid agencies say no to sugar daddies. We think European soccer needs these people. "

― Simon Kuper , Soccernomics

59 " The new globalized sports fan will happily snub his local domestic league. "

― Simon Kuper , Soccernomics