In their book Why England Lose, the soccer journalist Simon Kuper and the economist Stefan Szymanski found that money matters a great deal for the success of soccer clubs. According to their calculations, 92 percent of the differences in English soccer clubs’ league position can be explained by a club’s relative wage bill.1 It might not be the case that the team with the highest wage bill finishes top each and every season, but over the long term, the correlation is uncanny. At the other end of the table, it seems inevitable that, eventually, in soccer poverty will drag you down.
