In sport tournaments, the rules are presumably structured in a way that any team cannot be better off (e.g., to advance to the next round of competition) by losing instead of winning a game. Starting with a real-world example, the authors demonstrate that the existing national rules of awarding places for the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Europa League might produce a situation where a team will be strictly better off by losing a game.

As the new football season kicks off, Europe’s top clubs are preparing to abide by UEFA’s Financial Fair Play initiative, designed to ensure financial discipline and make European football more competitive. But this column argues that the new rules could end up doing just the opposite.

Are migrants paid more or less than their native colleagues? This column provides a unique insight by looking at data from an industry where there are many foreigners and where their relative quality can be easily measured – professional football in Italy.

This month some of Europe’s most skilled footballers will switch clubs in deals worth millions of euros. This column analyses the movement of Europe’s footballers between the top 14 leagues and finds that a major influence on player decisions to move is the difference in the tax regime – with policy implications going well beyond the football pitch.

After losing the football world cup final in South Africa, the Dutch press blamed the “chump” of a referee from England for losing control of the game. Yet this column presents evidence that, as one of the few countries where referees are paid a salary, English referees have the incentives to be among the best.

The 19th football World Cup is underway in South Africa. This column studies the achievements of the national teams of Belgium, Brazil, England, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands since 1960. It finds that while home advantage, skill, and luck play their part, in the dying moments of a game national identity can step forward as well.

The study of sports is beginning to tell us more and more about the operation of labour markets and incentives. This column looks at football to verify that wages reflect marginal productivity. It shows that two-footedness – the rare ability to use both feet to pass, tackle, and shoot – commands a large wage premium.