Measuring performance efficiency of Malaysian football clubs using Data Envelopment Analysis

Zuraida Alwadood; Amira Farisha Shahruddin; Amirah Sakinah Mustafa; Norlenda Mohd Noor.

In year 2023, there are at least 3986 football clubs registered from all countries around the world. It was more exciting when the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) World Cup was introduced, and it is held every four years with only qualified teams could take part in the tournament. Malaysian national team squad called Harimau Malaya is also currently training the best to be qualified in this World Cup. To enable them to take part in the prestigious match, they need to work hard to their best to perform well so that the club can be selected in the world match. These clubs do not have an idea about the level of their efficiency. Besides, they do not have the information on the best level of utilization of their available resources. This study intends to identify the efficiency level of the football clubs and determine the ideal inputs and outputs so that the efficiency of the clubs can be maximized. The data of inputs and outputs for each club was obtained from the matches which held in Malaysia Super League 2018. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model is a mathematical approach that is used in this study to evaluate the relative efficiency of the decision-making units (DMU). The DMUs in this study are 10 selected local football clubs, and the input data chosen are stadium capacity, overall transferred players, total shots and corners. Meanwhile, the output data used are ranking, total goal scored and overall points. The DEA result generated has shown that only DMU1 and DMU2 have recorded a full score of efficiency, while other clubs were described as inefficient, and improvement strategy was recommended to the clubs to improve their level of efficiency. The improvement strategy has successfully generated the suggested values of inputs and outputs which are able to increase efficiency to a better level. This study provides valuable insights for the football clubs to improve their performance efficiency and consequently contribute to the quality of the national football performance in future world tournaments.

KEYWORDS: Efficiency, Data Envelopment Analysis, Football Clubs, Performance Measure, Improvement Strategy.



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