DETERMINANTS OF TRANSFER SUCCESS IN EUROPEAN FOOTBALL: INSIGHTS FROM CROATIA

Abstract

Due to being a key source of income for the clubs in smaller leagues and its positive impact on national teams, talent export in European football is a critical subject. Many clubs from the smaller leagues of Europe rely on transfer income for their financial stability. Despite numerous attempts to identify the determinants of transfer fees, surprisingly there have been no attempts to identify the factors that influence a player’s success. This study aims to identify the factors that influence a transfer’s success. Using data from the Croatian top flight (N=205), a logistics regression and a linear regression model are estimated to find the determinants of successful transfers in European football. The results suggest that the transferred player’s market value at the time of the transfer, the transfer window, being transferred to one of the Big 5 leagues influence the probability of being successful. In addition, climate factors (temperature and precipitation) also impact the transferred players’ success. No differences were found with respect to the nationality, age or the position of the players. Contributions, limitations and future directions of the study are also presented. © 2025, Stanislaw Podobinski Publishing House of the Jan Dlugosz University. All rights reserved.