FOOTBALL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT IN THE CONTEXT OF EUROPEAN COMMON MARKET INTEGRATION

Abstract

Scientific problem. Football business is one of rapidly changing business sectors in Europe. The development of football business structure is based on changing financial flows, which become more and more various. In the analysis of football club’s business environment there appears the conflict of two different orientations of football managers: 1) orientation to general benefit, which is mostly based on sporting success that may impact positives changes of club’s financial state and 2) orientation to profit, where the main criteria for successful club management is profit maximization. The integration of European countries markets presumes the growing attention to the second orientation, which is based on financial results maximization. The goal of this study is to determine how this orientation conditions the changing structure of football system’s management and in that way those changes influences the change of football’s financial flows.
The findings. The analysis of various football specialists’ publications allows stating that one of the most important factors that influence the changes in European football business structure is the growing integration of different countries football markets. This integration conditions the growing importance of television role in football business and more intensive sport events schedule. Those two factors, together with other less important factors, influence the change in European business financial flows and create the presumption for more intensive football business development.