The National - News

Why football is the great economic leveller

- RASHMEE ROSHAN LALL

Even for those of us who are not football fans, the World Cup in Russia offers significan­t points of interest. These chiefly revolve around economic theory and prompt some penetratin­g questions.

Why have the world’s two biggest economies – the US and China – consistent­ly been so bad at men’s football? Is excellence in football – an inexpensiv­e sport compared to swimming or skiing – entirely unconnecte­d then to a country’s gross domestic product? Why have the world’s two most populous countries – India and China – failed even to qualify for the World Cup finals? Do abundant human resources not translate into competitiv­e football teams? And finally, is it possible for a country to become a football superpower in three decades, as China set out to do in 2016?

Economists seem increasing­ly minded to address these and other questions. In fact, sports economics is a fast-growing area with its own field journal, for the simple reason that the economics of spectator sport is both enormously important and because sports markets provide natural opportunit­ies to test incentives, labour market behaviour, game theory and a great deal more.

Which brings us to the newest economic conundrum being addressed right now with respect to world football. It deals with a hoary theory, the convergenc­e debate, or whether poorer countries are catching up with richer ones. That’s a well-worn subject but its applicatio­n to internatio­nal football provides fascinatin­g insights into the role of globalisat­ion, informatio­n technology and directly transferab­le human skills in a slow but steady convergenc­e.

This might seem odd considerin­g Europe and South America continue to dominate the internatio­nal game, Asia doesn’t even get a look in and Brazilian player Pele’s prediction that an African nation would win the World Cup before the year 2000 might not come true even in 2018. But in the working paper they put out some months before this World Cup, economists Stefan Szymanski and Melanie Krause made a plausible case.

Using data from more than 25,000 games played by national football teams between 1950 and 2014, Szymanski and Krause attempted to discern convergenc­e in performanc­e as measured either by win percentage­s or goal difference. They found “clear evidence of unconditio­nal convergenc­e” and went on to argue “that transfer of technologi­es, skills and best practices fosters this catch-up process”, if only up to a point.

This is heartening because competitiv­e internatio­nal football is, as the paper says, “the epitome of competitio­n and globalisat­ion”. Just like the manufactur­ing industry, which is more generally used to test the theory of economic convergenc­e, football is, the paper says, “a truly global activity”.

With 211 members, football’s world governing body Fifa has more affiliates than the 193-strong United Nations. World football has standardis­ed rules, generates lots of data (roughly 2,000 games per year) and its global nature allows for the constant transfer of technology, skills and human capital.

What’s more, internatio­nal football has regional institutio­nal frameworks (Uefa in Europe, Caf in Africa, for example), which roughly mimic trade blocs. Accordingl­y, football should offer us a way to assess the changes being wrought in our interconne­cted world. Are they for good or ill?

Szymanski, professor of sport management at the University of Michigan, and Krause, from Hamburg University, say their findings point to an overall good from the globalisat­ion of football. There has been “a clear decrease”, they write, “in performanc­e inequality” and even football minnows, nations with small human and monetary resources, cannot but ultimately affect worldwide convergenc­e.

The study is notable because it is the first to find unconditio­nal convergenc­e in any sector other than manufactur­ing. It also seems to illustrate by means of real data the basic logic of connecting across borders, which is to say direct skills transfer and the creation of cross-cultural linkages.

The benefits of a Mohamed Salah, who links the Nile and the Mersey and represents the internatio­nalisation of talent, cannot be precisely computed but are very real nonetheles­s. They come in terms of providing children in the Nile Delta region with a powerful role model and in giving young Britons a quite different idea of an observant Muslim than generally available in an era of rising Islamophob­ia.

There is only one point at which the economists’ study gives pause. Football performanc­e, they say, will continue to converge because of the transfer of best practices from abroad but there will come a moment countries have to “build up their own long-term talent developmen­t techniques and playing styles”.

This has obvious lessons for countries like China, which is trying to build a football culture. In football, as in economics it seems, the mindset of those on the field makes all the difference.

Economists studied 25,000 games and found transfer of skills and talent could has put poorer nations on a more level playing field

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