ABSTRACT
European football, also known as association football in the United Kingdom and soccer in the United States, is unquestionably the world's most popular sport. This chapter reviews the literature in the field of soccer economics with an emphasis on how professional team sports in America differ from the dominant team sport of the rest of the world and on suggestions for future research. Throughout the chapter, areas of potential future research interest have been noted; however, a handful of topics deserve, perhaps, special attention. As in other sports, soccer provides a laboratory in which to test the effects of racial discrimination on team performance. Soccer officiating has also received attention from various researchers. Sports economics in general has always benefited from its easy access to data, and recent information on transfer payments will allow an important check on the theoretical findings.
