Accounting for Soccer Players: Capitalization Paradigm vs. Expenditure☆

Abstract During the last century, football has evolved from a noble sport – played for reasons of entertainment, to a real money-making industry. This paper aims to analyze the reason of this evolution through the accounting point of view. More precisely, the paper presents the economic impact of football, how players’ contracts registration is framed by human resource accounting field, how accounting techniques can influence a club's financial representations, which International Accounting Standards are applied on football players’ contracts and how can their articles be interpreted. Moreover, the paper studies the accounting and valuation of different types of football players, based on their entry in a football team's squad. Finally, the main goal of the paper is to show which accounting and valuation technique is the most appropriate, in order to present “a true and fair view” in the financial statements.