Impact and efficiency ranking of football managers in the Italian Serie A: sport and financial performance

The contribution of managers to the performance of football teams in the Italian Serie A is investigated. Previous results are extended by analyzing two measures of performance: the awarded points from winning matches (sport performance) and the growth of the market value of players (financial performance). Several empirical methods are employed: OLS regressions, Shorrocks-Shapley decompositions of R-squared and Data Envelopment Analysis. Our findings suggest that managers exert a significant influence on both sport and financial performances with differences between top and worst coaches. However, most of the observable characteristics in a manager’s curriculum are not significantly related to team performance.