Women’s soccer: Less money, more sporting success

Soccer fans know the feeling. Their team spends millions on new players, but their position in the standings barely changes. A new study from Leipzig now shows just how strongly a team’s value is linked to its on-field success. Julia Kolba and Prof. Dr. Henning Zülch from HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management analyzed 100 teams from six top European leagues. Based on squad value, women’s teams earn significantly more points in the standings than men’s teams. In a direct comparison within the same clubs, the average difference is a factor of 106.

For the study, the researchers compared the teams’ squad values before the start of the season with the points earned at the end of the season. The squad value is the estimated market value of all players on a team combined. From this, they calculated a metric: points earned per million euros of squad value. The study examined the top women’s and men’s leagues in Germany, England, and Spain for the 2025–26 season – a total of 42 women’s and 58 men’s teams. The squad values are sourced from Transfermarkt and Soccerdonna. Therefore, they do not reflect how much money a club has actually spent on its team.

Squad Value Is Linked to Sporting Success

A clear pattern emerges across all six leagues. The higher the squad value, the more points a team tends to earn. Depending on the league, 45 to 85 percent of the differences in points earned can be statistically linked to the varying squad values. In the women’s leagues, this correlation is even more pronounced – at 75 to 85 percent – than in the men’s leagues.

The correlation is weakest in the men’s Premier League, where it stands at 45 percent. The researchers interpret this as follows: Where all clubs already have players with high market value, this factor distinguishes the clubs from one another to a lesser extent.

Women’s Teams Earn More Points Relative to Their Squad Value

The difference becomes particularly clear when comparing teams within individual clubs. In all 29 clubs studied that had both women’s and men’s teams, the women’s team earned more points per million euros of squad value. At Real Madrid, for example, this figure was 140 times higher for the women’s team than for the men’s team. In other words, relative to the squad’s value, the women earned 140 times as many league points for every million euros of squad value.

Real Madrid is not an isolated case. This difference was evident across all 29 clubs. It was smallest at Levante in Valencia, with a factor of 13, and largest at Tottenham, with a factor of 225. The median was 106. For half of the clubs, the difference was smaller; for the other half, it was larger. However, a factor of 106 does not mean that every additional euro invested in women’s soccer automatically yields 106 times more sporting success. The authors of the study themselves point this out. The metric merely compares the current squad value to the league points earned.

Nevertheless, the authors see the results as indicating a currently favorable environment for investing in women’s teams. “Sporting success in women’s soccer is significantly less capital-intensive than in men’s soccer,” says Prof. Dr. Henning Zülch, holder of the Chair of Accounting, Auditing, and Capital Market Communication at HHL. “Those who invest in women’s teams now secure a competitive advantage in a market that still reliably rewards investment.” However, the study does not examine whether such investments are also financially profitable.


Original publication:
Julia Kolb, Henning Zülch: From Market Value to Competitive Advantage: Why Women’s Soccer Still Rewards Efficient Investments. HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management, Leipzig 2026.