Controversies about the Accounting Treatment of Transfer Fee in the Football Industry

Abstract

Investments in sportsmen traditionally were considered as costs, together with transfer fees. From the second half of the twentieth century transfer fees are considered as assets. However, in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries the opinion prevailed that requirements for capitalization are met, and that capitalization and disclosure as intangibles are an obligatory procedure in almost all countries with a developed accounting tradition. There is the question of justification of the above procedure, having in mind that the contribution of the contracted fee for transfers cannot be determined related to the financial benefit of clubs, that players are often alienated before the end of the contract, and that the requirements for the control cannot be fully met.