We have analysed data going back to 1998. So we have quite a long data set. And what we see is that football stocks have lagged behind the general markets by a very large margin, about 270% over the whole period. That's a really big underperformance. And we also saw that last year: There was also a pretty big underperformance in the 2024/25 season.

We believe that there is a very big discrepancy between creating shareholder value, namely maximising the share price, and the main objective of a football club, which is to win games, win trophies and leagues and entertain the fans. That doesn't really go well together. Football clubs care about their results and their fans, but they don't care so much about their shareholders. And that's exceptional. If you compare that with other companies, you can see that they have a very strong incentive to optimise shareholder value. So football shares are in a somewhat special situation, which is evident from the returns.

Why do we do this, even though we don't see it as an investment case? It's simply a case study on an interesting topic. We don't offer this to clients. It's not an investment product. You can't really invest in something like this. For us, it's more for fun and entertainment. We did it to get an insight into a pretty interesting niche of the stock market.

It includes listed football clubs. There are 21 clubs in total at the moment. These clubs are spread all over Europe. Clubs from the Premier League, Bundesliga, Serie A, League 1 and so forth. There are quite a few big leagues. Manchester United is the biggest participant, but there are also clubs like Juventus, for example, and even a German club, Borussia Dortmund. We believe that this is the broadest or probably even the only index of its kind that exists. We thought that listed football clubs would be an interesting topic to investigate, so we wrote an analysis and then updated it again a few weeks ago.

If you look at the entire period from 1998 to now, the Pelé Index has underperformed the overall market by 270%. The index had a total return of -9% over this period and the broader market of European equities had a return of approximately +260%. If you only look at the 2024/2025 season, we are talking about a difference of -17 percentage points.

In a normal situation, long-term profits bind shareholders. Subsequently, the share price rises. And that is what they are interested in. But that is not the long-term goal of a football club. They want to win games, cups and leagues, be competitive and entertain the fans. That's a completely different mindset to maximising shareholder value.

If a club believes it needs an extra player, it is prepared to pay a lot of money for it, including a fairly high salary. That's good for the club and perhaps also for the fans, and it increases the chances of winning games. But at the same time, this very high salary is a cost factor for the club, and it is also a cost factor for the shareholder. Very often you see that it doesn't lead to a higher profit for the club. So there is a huge imbalance between the interests. That's something we see with most football clubs, that they spend a lot of money. Sometimes that leads to share price gains, which is nice, but very often that's not the case.

Virtually every club underperforms over a longer period of time. There are periods in which clubs perform better. So they don't always underperform. This season, for example, we can see that Juventus have done quite well. And also Benfica in Portugal. Those are the highlights this year, so to speak. Borussia Dortmund also had a positive return this year, but less than the Dax. There are phases in which these shares perform better than the index. But in the long term, if you add everything up and look over 20 years, for example, we see a clear pattern of underperformance.

I took a closer look at Borussia Dortmund. They have been listed since 2000. They were issued for 11 euros in Frankfurt back then. The shares are now trading at 4 euros, even just under 4 euros. If the dividends are taken into account, we are still talking about a total return of around -50%. Over the past 25 years, shareholders have lost around half of their investment. If they had invested their money in the Dax, on the other hand, they would have earned more than 200%. That shows how big the difference is.

According to our analysis, there is a very weak correlation between sporting success and financial success. That may sound a bit strange, but we see that there is only a very weak relationship between results on the pitch and results on the stock market. So this is not unusual.

I actually think it's better to stay away from football shares. There is simply an imbalance between the interests of a club and those of a shareholder, and that is not a good situation. In the Netherlands, our football hero Johann Cruyff once said: „I am not a thief of my own wallet.“ I think this saying also applies to this particular investment niche. It means that if you value your money, then stay away from these stocks and look for alternative investment opportunities, because history shows that this strategy doesn't work. And it's not going to change any time soon. Sports clubs are not really a good investment.

About the person: Jordy Hermanns, CFA, is a portfolio manager in the multi-asset group and an investment strategist in Aegon's asset allocation team. This team manages a broad range of multi-asset funds and Hermanns is responsible for strategic and tactical asset allocation decisions. He also prepares macroeconomic and financial market analyses for internal and external stakeholders.