Club-specific timeline for productivity from foreign-player investment

Determine, for each English Premier League club, the timescale over which investment in foreign players yields measurable gains in both on-field performance (as reflected by end-of-season points) and net economic profit, thereby quantifying the club-specific lag between spending on foreign players and observable productivity in performance and financial outcomes.

Background

The study analyzes English Premier League seasons from 2009/10 to 2016/17 (with partial 2017/18 data), re-ranking teams using five descriptors: total expenditure, spending on all players, spending on foreign players, the ratio of foreign to British players, and total profit. The authors find strong associations between higher spending (particularly on foreign players) and better league performance, but a weaker link between performance and profit.

They note that the impact of investing in foreign players is unlikely to be immediate, suggesting a maturation period before such investment translates into on-field success and financial returns. This leads to a specific unresolved question about quantifying the club-by-club timeline for these effects to materialize.