From grief to goals? The performance effects of sudden player death in professional football
Abstract
We examine the effect of a footballer’s unexpected death on team performance. Using a dataset of 203 professional players who died unexpectedly between 1970 and 2024, we estimate a panel ordered logit regression model on match outcomes before and after each event. We find evidence of a fleeting rally effect (i.e., a short-term increase in team performance) when teams are confronted with unexpected human loss.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Sports Analytics and Performance
Sport Psychology and Performance
Physical Education and Sports Studies
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Applied Economics Letters
- Pages
- 1–5
- Publication date
- 13 January 2026
- Language
- EN