Cruijff's 'velvet revolution' (2016)

This paper examines the influence of board executives with a background in football on both the sportive and financial performance of the football club. In order, the researchers used data from all 34 Dutch professional football clubs to explain their performance by firm- and executive characteristics. Generally, they find strong evidence that football clubs can buy success by their payroll mechanism. However, they find no evidence that executives with a football background effectively influence the football club’s sportive performance. Moreover, they expected these football backgrounded executives to subsequently worsen the financial performance of the football club. Based on the idea that there exists a trade off between sportive and financial performance. Although, the researchers find weak evidence of a trade-off between sportive and financial performance, they find no evidence that executives with a background in football amplify this trade-off effect, and therefore would worsen the financial performance of the football club.