Keys to football success

Abstract: Despite the popularity of football, no one has made a study of what external factors affect the chances of being a successful football city in Sweden. In this thesis a statistical study, using a Fixed Effects model, of all Swedish municipalities in the years 2003-2012 is performed to identify the most important external factors affecting the football performance. The number of points in Allsvenskan, the highest Swedish football division, is used as the measure of performance and the explanatory variables are chosen based on previous research. The results show that the optimal Swedish football city has a recent history of being successful in football and it is unlikely that we will see many new municipalities represented in Allsvenskan, in the future. Increases in the educational level also have a small positive impact on the football performance. Competition from an additional team in Allsvenskan from the same county, but from another municipality, has a small negative impact on the football performance of a municipality.