Optimising football transfer strategy under budget constraints: A weighted multi-criteria approach

TL;DR

This paper presents a comprehensive quantitative framework for football transfer strategy optimization under budget constraints, integrating player valuation, squad needs, and market competition through multi-criteria and auction models.

Contribution

It introduces a novel integrated approach combining player valuation, multi-criteria optimization, and auction modeling to improve transfer decision-making under budget limits.

Findings

The framework accurately models transfer market dynamics.

It effectively identifies optimal transfer strategies within budget constraints.

Application to the English Premier League demonstrates practical utility.

Abstract

The football transfer market is a complex, dynamic environment in which clubs compete to acquire players who strengthen their squads. While several frameworks estimate a player's worth, a comprehensive approach that captures both squad optimisation and transfer market dynamics remains limited. In this paper, we propose a quantitative framework for optimising football transfer strategy under budget constraints, integrated with a competitive bidding paradigm. Using data from professional football leagues, we construct player performance and transfer price models using linear mixed-effects frameworks that incorporate player characteristics, recent performance, team context, and league effects. The predicted ratings and estimated transfer prices are then integrated into a weighted multi-criteria constrained optimisation framework that determines a club's transfer activities at the end of the season. Finally, these optimal transfer decisions are embedded within an independent private-value auction model with a random reserve price to analyse market behaviour when multiple teams compete for the same player. We illustrate our approach using the 2018-19 season of the English Premier League to demonstrate its ability to capture transfer-market dynamics.