An in-depth evaluation of the financial performance of Turkish Football Clubs using entropy-based RAWEC, FUCA, and SAW Methodologies

Abstract

Football, the world's most popular sport, has evolved into a multi-billion-dollar global enterprise. As the football industry expanded and attracted a wider audience, clubs increasingly adopted corporatization strategies, seeking funding through capital markets and establishing publicly traded entities. This study aims to assess, compare, and rank the financial performance of football teams listed on Borsa Istanbul by applying multi-criteria decisionmaking methods. In doing so, it aims to provide valuable insights to clubs and stakeholders for informed financial decision-making and to enrich the existing literature by providing a fresh perspective on evaluating financial performance in the context of sport enterprises. The sample comprises four Turkish football clubs, with data drawn from the years 2022 and 2023. Twelve financial performance indicators were identified as the criteria for analysis, and their respective weights were determined using the Entropy methodology. To rank and compare the alternatives, the recently developed "Ranking of Alternatives with Weights of Criterion" (RAWEC) approach was applied alongside the Faire Un Choix Adéquat (FUCA) and Simple Additive Weighting (SAW) multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) methodologies. The final rankings obtained from these MCDM methods were then combined through Borda count and Copeland techniques to obtain a conclusive assessment. The adoption of the RAWEC methodology stems from the lack of comprehensive financial analyses focused on football entities using this particular model. According to the Entropy results, "Net Profit Margin" emerged as the most critical performance indicator in 2023, with the highest value of 0.0884, whereas in 2022, "Debt to Equity Ratio" was the dominant indicator, recording a value of 0.1025. The integrated evaluation results revealed that Galatasaray (GSRAY) achieved the highest ranking in 2023, while Beşiktaş (BJKAS) ranked lowest. Conversely, in 2022, BJKAS secured the top position, with Trabzonspor (TSPOR) finishing last.