9.1 Introduction

Most not-for-profit European organizations are local associations. This is the case in Portugal too. And within this group, we can find a significant subgroup of local associations mainly focused on cultural and sporting activities . Their profile has not yet been reasonably characterized nor their strategies of sustainability suitably analyzed. Therefore, in this chapter, we aim to carry out an inquiry for characterizing a representative sample of these local associations and to study their strategies of sustainability.

For the purpose of the Chapter, we will review the literature on local associations, not-for-profit sporting teams, and amateur soccer organizations. As these amateur soccer organizations tend to participate in municipal or regional championships/leagues, we will also discuss these amateur leagues.

Then, we will discuss convenient sample methods to guarantee a good representative share of the local associations. As we carried out a previous inquiry relating to Portuguese amateur soccer teams, we are going to use this case study and the observed methodological stages for a practical guide.

We will be able to relate and explain appropriate statistical tools , namely, descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation matrices, or independence tests between two variables. These tools are essential for further developments that we also anticipate in our Chapter, such as the use of probit/logit ordered regressions for explaining dependent variables like those derived from Likert scales.

Finally, we will also explore how three major dimensions of sustainability for not-for-profit organizations are closely related: financial sustainability, institutional/environmental sustainability, and human/stakeholder sustainability. These dimensions will also be examined in the special cases of local associations and amateur teams .

9.2 Reviewing the Literature: Amateur Teams as Survivors

9.2.1 Amateur Soccer Teams: From Social Goals to Survival in a Competitive Economy

The relevance of associations for sports development is a well-established dimension in the literature (Esteves 1975). This importance comes from the evidence that most professional teams began being constituted as informal or amateur organizations (assuming legal forms of associations of citizens without profitable intent as the main goal); equally important is the evidence that most soccer matches organized weekly by regional/local organizing entities involve teams related to associations (Albuquerque 2007). Carvalho (1994) even recognizes that it is hardly conceivable to think about the Olympic modalities of today without the work of schools and citizens’ collectivities (work which has often been invisible in the statistics and in the proper valuation by governments and societies).

Most of these associations share the concern of providing sports exhibitions but also sports infrastructure for citizens and communities (Araújo 1984). In fact, Carvalho (1997) recognizes that the presence of local sports teams managed by associations composed of citizens is responsible for a large share of the cultural and sporting activities in many municipalities of the most developed economies in the world.

As stated, social recognition of the sports associations in local or regional economies has been low. Despite this low recognition, sports associations have a complex set of social goals (Carvalho 2001). These goals involve the construction of communication links and cooperation channels with other organizations of society, the development of a culture of responsibility among participating citizens, the training of directors toward fiscal/legal obligations, the management of human resources , and bargaining strategies with levels of government.

9.2.2 Three Challenges for the Sustainability of Amateur Soccer Teams

Amateur soccer teams tend to have three major Challenges for their own sustainability (Sousa 1988): the human dimension, institutional vitality , and financial dynamics . Let us review each one of these dynamics in detail.

The human dimension is an essential dynamic for nonprofit organizations , as amateur soccer teams are. The “human structure” is composed of three major groups: associated citizens, sports players , and hired personnel (Sousa 1988). The associated citizens are those who entered into the organization from a volunteer perspective, keeping the right to exit the organization at any time. Depending on each association, there are certain obligations to be respected, namely, loyalty , the yearly payment of a fee, participation in general assemblies, and the support of the organization/team’s activities. The second dynamic regards the sports players , classifiable in terms of age, payment, and level of professionalization (Sousa 1988). Finally, the third dynamic is related to hired personnel: sports managers , coaches , clinical staff (physicians, physiotherapists, nurses, etc.), and administrative staff .

Institutional vitality is a reminder that no organization survives alone. Therefore, even amateur soccer teams have to continually renew their partnerships with other teams, other nonprofit organizations , with public entities (municipalities and national governments), and with the evolving entrepreneurial sector (Mourao and Enes 2016). From these connections, there appear often opportunities for sharing challenges and solutions, as well as common threats and common replies, which can significantly improve the likelihood of joint survival and of joint transformation.

Finally, as important as the previous two dimensions, we have the third dynamic – financial flows of the entity. Following Mourao and Enes (2016) and Heinemann (1988), the financial dynamic can be thought of as a triangle, with the three sides representing cash flows , fiscal costs, and indebtedness expenses.

Seeking positive cash flows, time after time, is a hard task for most amateur soccer teams. Besides managing the wages bill and costs related to the transport of the team(s), along with paying for the repair and maintenance of the infrastructure and expenses of electricity and water consumption and diverse supplies , amateur soccer teams have to properly manage revenues, such as ticket revenues, fees, grants from the government, (local/regional) sponsorships , and donations (Heinemann 1988).

Additionally, amateur soccer teams have obligations to governments, namely fiscal obligations. These teams have to pay contributions to the Social Security related to the hired personnel, indirect taxes from most non-sports activities (like coffee shops or newspapers shops), and sometimes direct taxes from the possession of rented properties (Coates and Humphreys 2003). Consequently, these teams need to save resources to pay their fiscal obligations in due time.

Finally, indebtedness costs may appear from past decisions taken by past Boards of Directors, especially those linked to costs of maintaining/repairing physical infrastructure.Footnote 1 When there are these kinds of liabilities, amateur soccer teams have additional pressures to collect more substantial inflows in order to properly pay the interest from past debts and to mortgage the owed values (Mourao 2012).

These three dimensions are structural dimensions for a nonprofit organization /amateur soccer team. They are especially relevant for an amateur soccer team’s sustainability. However, until now and as far as we know, there has not been any serious attempt to properly evaluate the status of Portuguese amateur soccer teams in terms of sustainability. There is already a substantial body of work focused on the universe of Portuguese professional soccer teams (e.g., Mourao 2012, presented some of them), but the reality of amateur soccer teams has not received the same attention.

To fill this gap, a survey was constructed for distribution to all amateur soccer teams playing in the most demanding amateur regional leagues in Portugal (i.e., in the leagues providing the chance of the champion team being promoted to national competition – the 3rd Division, organized by the Portuguese Federation of Soccer). The rationale for this option – for distributing the survey to all amateur teams playing in the “Premier League” of each administrative district – is simple: Portugal has 21 administrative districts, and the clubs headquartered in each district compose the related regional association of soccer teams. So, there are 21 regional amateur Premier Leagues (Campeonatos Distritais) of senior male players .

These regional leagues are very different among themselves. Some regional associations have three or four championships/leagues in a hierarchical order (meaning that the highest-placed teams at the end of the competition tend to have the right to play in a higher league in the following season and, conversely, the worst-placed teams are relegated to the immediately lower league). However, when checking all these regional championships, we observe that all have in common at least one league. For instance, in the surveyed season of 2012/2013, the region/district of Castelo Branco had only one (senior males) league; in the opposite case, the regions of Lisbon and Oporto had five (senior males) leagues each.

9.2.3 Toward an Empirical Analysis of the Triangular Sustainability

To study the sustainability of Portuguese amateur soccer teams, and following the literature (Mourao and Enes 2016; Elkington 1998; Sousa et al. 2012), we have to analyze the financial sustainability, the institutional sustainability, and the agents/stakeholders’ sustainability. Let us recall the sub-structures of each of these.

Financial sustainability is composed of three vectors: the sustainability of cash flows (revenues over expenses), the sustainability of fiscal obligations, and the sustainability of indebtedness . Therefore, it is relevant to observe for each team a complex set of variables (Wladimir 1988; Bryson et al. 2001; Valentinov 2008) for the dimension of financial sustainability: the size of each team’s revenues and expenditures, the difference between each team’s revenues and expenditures, the fulfillment of fiscal obligations or the need to negotiate enlargements of the period of payment, the presence of bank loans, the periodicity of the payment of bank interest, and the weight of the liabilities (considering the different terms) on the global size of assets .

Regarding institutional sustainability, it will be important to analyze the network of partnerships in which the amateur soccer team acts (Matos 2001). Besides the existence of signed protocols with other institutions (like municipalities, universities, or other collectivities), it is important to check the existence of practices of sharing infrastructure, vehicles, or technical staff with other teams/nonprofit entities.

Related to the third challenge – the sustainability of human resources  – it is relevant to investigate the renewal of directors, sports players , and associated citizens (Matos 2001), avoiding a certain trend of “eternization” of some founding members/directors, or a certain homogeneity of the associated citizens (in terms of age, gender, education level, or income level). It is also important to observe the existence of efforts toward the contribution of more skilled managers (Carvalho 1997).

The original questions/questionnaires (in Portuguese) are in Gomes (2014). Their synthetic forms are in Table 9.1 (below).

Table 9.1 Questions in the questionnaire and distribution of the responses
Full size table

9.3 Empirical Sections

9.3.1 Universe, Sample, Questionnaire, and Survey

In Portugal, there are 21 Regional Associations of Soccer (Associações Distritais de Futebol). These Regional Associations have delegated powers from the Portuguese Federation of Soccer and, given their autonomy, they organize regional leagues of various ages since players range from 5 to 6 years of age to seniors (aged 20 or more) to veterans (aged 35 or more years). The leagues are also separated by gender (male leagues and female leagues). As already introduced, there are regional associations with various leagues of senior male players , with the possibility of promotion/relegation across the leagues.

Therefore, our universe should ideally be composed by all the amateur soccer teams in Portugal, independent of the age of players, gender, or the sports relevance of the league. However, given the high heterogeneity across the country, we have to work with sampling techniques (Bell and Thorpe 2013). In order to have an expected relatively high percentage of respondents, and given the availability of contacts, it was decided to construct the sample of amateur soccer teams by considering the cases of teams of senior male players in the highest league organized by each regional association. This sample was identified for the season 2012/2013 (period in which this study was initiated, first motivated by the development of the Gomes thesis 2014).

The use of questionnaires is justified for the intention of collecting primary data from an enlarged sample of respondents with regard to social, professional, economic, or idiosyncratic characteristics (Yanow and Schwartz-Shea 2006). In the case of soccer teams (independent of being either amateur or professional), there are also motivations of data availability and of data divulgation. Regarding data availability, it is always difficult to find a convenient number of clubs with detailed reports regarding their sports and financial dimensions. This difficulty is even more evident in the case of amateur teams/clubs. The problem of data divulgation is also relevant. Even if there is respect for the yearly approval of accounts, budgets, and activities, the clubs keep their right to preserve these reports as private documents, only accessible to the affiliated members or to legal authorities. For bypassing these two difficulties (data availability and data divulgation), it is also recommended to use questionnaires , which have been found to be a tool of compromise between the objectives of researchers and those of data owners (Hess et al. 2002). Additionally, as it is intended to test theoretical hypotheses and to analyze statistical correlations, the survey based on a questionnaire is widely suggested (Quivy and Campenhoudt 2008).

For the distribution of the questionnaires , we utilized the electronic platform Google Docs. Given the national dispersion of the surveyed teams, combined with the restriction of available time, it was preferred to use the electronic platform Google Docs, as suggested by Nulty (2008).Footnote 2 Following Alves (2006) and because of the novelty of the topic – the sustainability of Portuguese amateur soccer teams – it was advised to run a pre-survey .

In this pre-survey , two teams were randomly chosen for each regional association of soccer. Of the 44 teams targeted for response in this pre-survey, we got replies from 10. These 10 questionnaires were then examined in terms of the variability of the answers to each question and their statistical significance. We observed that the answers were statistically heterogeneous and so all the questions in the pre-survey were kept in the final questionnaire to be distributed to the entire sample of 312 teams. However, after trying to collect the contact information for all 312 teams, we only received valid/active emails for 217 teams.

The questionnaire was distributed in the period between April of 2013 and January of 2014. After several reminders, we were able to have the responses from 78 respondent teams (which provided a mean sample error of 9.6%). Although we have not asked a precise identification of the people who were responding, we can ensure that a significant and large proportion of the people responding were members of the Board of Directors of each team (mostly, secretaries or even the presidents, who are the people able to open the official mail of the clubs).

9.3.2 Results: Describing and Discussing

Table 9.1 exhibits the distribution of the frequencies of the responses received for each question in the questionnaire . More details are available under request.

Let us begin with the responses related to the sustainability of human resources .

We observe that 62% of the respondent teams (i.e., 48 teams) have affiliated members (in Portuguese, sócios) numbering in the range between 101 and 500, 19% of the teams have members numbering between 501 and 1000, and 6% of the teams have 100 or fewer members.

Only half of the clubs have (male) teams participating in the youth divisions, which reveals a double challenge: difficulties in joining young athletes interested in playing for the clubs (sometimes related to the low density of the places around the club) and significant restrictions of resources (leading to the concentration of efforts toward the participation of a few of competitive teams in a certain number of divisions). There is also a significant gap between male and female teams – only a very low number of clubs (4%) have female teams.

Related to the number of paid workers, most of the teams (56%) recognize the existence of a number of workers less than or equal to 5 employees. Some 15% of the teams employ between 6 and 9 persons, and 13% of the teams have more than 20 workers. However, 49% of the teams assume the presence of a number of volunteers working for the team, between 10 and 20 people. A total of 59% of the teams evaluate their quality of human resources as “satisfactory” or “good.”

There is a statistically significant dominance of male members in the governing groups (known as Social Bodies ) of the Portuguese amateur teams. The most common school level for members of the Social Bodies is “High School” (73%), and 79% of the members in the Social Bodies tend to be dependent workers. A relevant challenge comes from the “eternization” of the presidents of the clubs: responses indicated that for almost half of the clubs (46%), the current president has had held this function for more than 4 years.

Two thirds (66%) of the clubs have the headquarters totally owned by the club or permanently granted without any charge.

On the specific dimension of financial sustainability, some results deserve a proper highlighting. For instance, 55% of the surveyed clubs reported positive financial outcomes for the previous year. Of the entities assuming positive outcomes, 49% recognized that the positive balance had not exceeded 10,000 euros; 18% of teams had losses less than 10,000 euros.

Most of the teams’ revenues were reported as coming from municipal grants (76%), fees (47%), and parishes’ grants (33%). It also deserves to be noted that only the teams of the Autonomous Regions of the Azores and Madeira identified the option “governmental subsidies” as a source of revenues. Almost two-thirds of the teams (63%) responded that their yearly revenues attributed to the three most generous sources surpassed 10,000 euros; 70% of the teams responded that yearly total revenues were valued at more than 20,000 euros.

The most expensive items for Portuguese amateur soccer teams have been the costs of players’ official registrations in competition (85%), players’ and managers’ wages (51%), equipment (47%), transport (45%), and insurance costs (18%). Of the teams that responded, 53% said that their total expenses came to more than 40,000 euros and 68% of the teams recognized that the top three most expensive expenses surpassed a yearly value of 10,000 euros; 28% of the Portuguese amateur soccer teams confessed they still have bank loans to be paid.

Regarding satisfaction about physical resources/infrastructure, 9% responded “very unsatisfactory,” 19% responded “unsatisfactory,” 35% responded “satisfactory,” and 37% “good.” The sports equipment is considered “satisfactory” or “good” by 70% of the respondents. The quality of furniture and of electronic devices is also evaluated as “satisfactory” or “good” for 62% of the respondents. Similarly, 67%, the quality of the coffee shops of the amateur soccer clubs is perceived as “satisfactory” or “good” by respondents.

Finally, we are going to briefly describe the most significant results related to institutional sustainability. We observed that 62% of the clubs are recognized as Entities of Public Utility , a status enabling benefits in terms of tax avoidance and in terms of eligibility for public grants (Decree-Law 391/2007). Some 49% of the clubs have their own headquarters in places primarily owned by different entities/persons, which reinforces the need for managing the relations between clubs and involving entities. It has also been observed that 68% of the clubs reveal that they pay VAT (mostly from the activities of the coffee shops and gyms) and into Social Security, which launches challenges for the tax schemes being adopted for enlarging the institutional net of partners for the Portuguese clubs (Matos 2001).

9.3.3 Testing Empirical Hypotheses Upon Questionnaires

The interest of the surveys is not just restricted to descriptive analysis, as was done in the previous sub-section. They also allow testing the (in)dependence of variables among other hypotheses and to estimate (empirical) models able to identify determinants for the distribution of the responses to major questions (Garbacz et al. 2016).

For the purpose of illustrating this potential, we introduce the following hypotheses extracted from the literature:

  • i)  The competitiveness of each team in regional/amateur competitions is independent of the competitiveness of the same team in national/professional competitions (Mourao 2012; Cima 2012). ii) Relatively successful amateur soccer teams tend to have a larger basis of affiliated members (Mourao 2012; Cima 2012).iii) The perception over the various dimensions of the team’s assets is not independent (Carvalho 1994).

For testing these hypotheses, we are going to follow Laureano (2011: 114) and therefore we will run the Chi-square non-parametric test of independence of two variables/groups.

According to McHugh (2013), “the Chi-square statistic is a non-parametric (distribution free) tool designed to analyze group differences when the dependent variable is measured at a nominal level. Like all non-parametric statistics, the Chi-square is robust with respect to the distribution of the data.”

Regarding the first hypothesis to be tested (“The competitiveness of each team in regional/amateur competitions is independent of the competitiveness of the same team in national/professional competitions”), we got a p-value = 0.200 when testing the independence between the number of regional titles and the number of national titles for a team. Therefore, we agree with Mourao (2012) and Cima (2012) when they observed that it is very difficult for the most competitive regional/amateur soccer teams to maintain competitiveness when promoted to national/semi-professional/professional leagues.

For the second hypotheses, we tested the statistical linkage between the presence of past national titles and the number of affiliated members in a Portuguese amateur soccer team. We got a p-value of 0.020 and x 2 = 11,469. Therefore, in this hypothesis, we can accept the existence of dependence between the number of affiliated members (with the financial potentialities of fees’ dynamics) and the history of each team’s success in national competitions. These results follow Matos (2001), Mourao (2012), and Cima (2012).

Related to the third hypothesis, there are very interesting results. It was found that the satisfaction level regarding infrastructure is not independent of the satisfaction level of the equipment’s status (x 2 = 41,999; p-value = 0.000). Additionally, the perception of the quality of the human resources has also been found associated with the perception of the quality of the material resources (x 2 = 19,035; p-value = 0.007). The evaluation made on the sufficiency of administrative human resources is not independent of the evaluation made on the sufficiency of the other human resources of the club (x 2 = 37,622; p-value = 0.000). These results generally are in line with Sousa (1988), Carvalho (1994), Homem (1997), and Paiva (2013), reinforcing the importance of maintaining all the resources of a team at high levels of quality and motivation.

9.4 Conclusions

This chapter has been focused on the potentialities of conducting questionnaires online for researching the under-analyzed reality of amateur soccer teams/clubs. Although there are many more amateur/non-professional/semi-professional teams than professional soccer teams, and although being especially responsible for the development of youth sports to a larger degree than professional teams are, amateur soccer clubs are only now capturing the attention of economists and social scientists in terms of empirical analysis.

These amateur clubs have been linked to the sector of nonprofit organizations and of local associations. Most of these clubs started their activities several decades ago and have faced different cycles of challenges. However, only now have the challenges of sustainability been attracting the attentions of academicians, who have been recognizing the importance of sustainable amateur clubs for local/regional economies and for youth sports’ development.

Therefore, it was our intention to provide a set of methodological procedures toward the use of questionnaires as important tools for collecting information from amateur soccer teams. The focus of our questionnaire was the study of the sustainability of soccer teams, considering three major vectors: financial sustainability, stakeholders’ sustainability, and institutional sustainability.

After a review of literature in which we detailed the major dimensions behind each vector, we constructed a questionnaire using two stages – a pre-survey and the definitive survey. The survey was distributed to all the Portuguese soccer teams playing in the Premier Leagues organized by each regional association of soccer teams. After properly discussing the advantages and disadvantages of several methods of distribution, we preferred to use the electronic distribution of Google Docs. We received responses from 78 teams, which resulted in a mean sample error of 9.6%.

We were presented with a highly detailed description of the sustainability of Portuguese amateur soccer teams and their clubs. Although clubs recognize the restricted resources that they have for supporting the major sport and social activities, the responses also revealed that most of them have some autonomy in terms of tangible assets . We also were informed that only a few of these teams have bank loans to be paid. However, the responses revealed serious challenges in terms of the sustainability/renewal of stakeholders, especially of the members of the Social Bodies . Finally, the most relevant source of revenues is recognized to come from public grants (mainly, municipal subsidies).

After a descriptive section, we also tested – principally for illustrative purposes – some hypotheses. We were not able to refuse the hypothesis of independence between the existence of regional titles and the presence of national titles. However, we were able to refuse the hypothesis of independence between the existence of national titles and a larger number of affiliated members, and the hypothesis of independence between the perception of the quality of each club’s infrastructure and its equipment.

There are three major challenges for us derived from this research. First, it will be interesting to produce longitudinal studies, collecting data from the same clubs observed at different seasons. This opportunity will give us additional information in terms of the dynamics of each club’s sustainability. The second challenge comes from the opportunity of, with the longitudinal data, running panel data logit/probit regressions or ordered logit/probit regressions (depending on the nature of the variables chosen to be treated as dependent ones). These dependent variables can be questions regarding an overall perception of the financial health of a club, for instance, or the overall perception of the quality of a club’s departments (Garbacz et al.2016). Finally, it will also be relevant to observe differences across the responses from various members of the Social Bodies of each club, which would generate additional insights into the heterogeneity of perceptions.