Human resources turnover as an asset acquisition and divestiture process: Evidence from the U.K. football industry

We shed light on the drivers and consequences of turnover in human resources for the UK football industry. We employ an event study using daily panel data of player transfers for a group of listed UK football clubs. Our results suggest asymmetric wealth effects: the acquisition of players is associated with negative abnormal club stock returns while player sales have an opposite effect. According to our findings, shareholders perceive that football managers overpay to acquire human resources. Our discussion draws possible links to the corporate finance literature which deals with the purchase and sale of firms and assets.