Do football clubs prefer to attract a player permanently, or do they prefer to hire him? ‘Those who buy, just take a bigger risk,’ says Thomas Peeters, sport economist at Erasmus School of Economics. ‘After all, you pay a fair amount of money, including all the costs.’
According to Peeters, a less capital-strong club will not so easily invest heavily on players. ‘But think of Chelsea, which built a gigantic group of players a few years ago and then lent them out. That is how their model works.’
‘For clubs it is often an opportunity to lure famous footballers to them, players who are too expensive for a definitive transfer at that moment,’ says Peeters. ‘Studies have also shown that clubs seldom just rent, usually there is a combination of transfer and borrowed boys.’
The entire article of Gazet van Antwerpen, 13 August 2019, can be found here or downloaded below (in Dutch).
- Assistant professor