Accounting in Football : A Study on the Human resource accounting of football players in Allsvenskan

Abstract: Human resource accounting has grown in importance over the past few years as organizations that heavily rely on their labour force and their skills seek to account for them as assets to reflect their output. Football clubs fall into that category as players are vital for the success of the team. Accounting regulations such as the UEFA financial fair play exist in order to help football clubs account for their players as intangible assets on their balance sheets. However, there are uncertainties over the effectiveness of existing regulations as youth players and Bosman players for example are exempted and there are difficulties in specifying what it is that players account for. The authors study 4 clubs that compete in Allsvenskan as well as UEFA competitions in order to determine if Swedish teams present a fair and true value of their human resources. The authors find that despite the fact that balance sheets show a great degree of consistency between clubs and all meet minimum requirements set by ruling bodies, financial reporting in football still has some way to go in order to fully reflect the true value of players.