Reanalyzing the competitiveness in football leagues: accumulated points difference

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to elaborate an alternative measure to compare football leagues based on Accumulated Points Difference (APD). The sample includes eight seasons (2006-2007 to 2013-2014) from nine football leagues: German Bundesliga, Campeonato Brasileiro (Brazil), La Liga BBVA (Spain),  French Ligue 1, Dutch Eredivise, English Premier League, Italian Serie A, Portuguese Primeira Liga and Russian Premier League. We have employed the ANOVA one way with Tukey post hoc to compare the results. We have confirmed the robustness of the model comparing it with two traditional measures: Herfindahl Index of Competitive Balance (HICB) and C4 Index of Competitive Balance (C4ICB). As a result, we have found that the Brazilian League was the most balanced tournament in this period and there are no statistical differences between European leagues.