Foul Play? The Rise and Fall of Third-Party Ownership as a Controversial Practice in Football

We study the diffusion process for a controversial practice that involves multi-constituents with
diverse motivations. In doing so, we uncover how conflicting judgments shape the diffusion
process of a controversial practice. Using an inductive study that employs archival and interview
data covering over 20 years, we examine the evolution of the third-party ownership (TPO) in the
global industry of football - a practice that transformed the ownership of football players from
belonging to football clubs to being shared amongst investors like “pizza slices.” We follow the
TPO from its origins as an enabler for unfavored actors to join the industry to its enactment as an
illegitimate financial instrument for exploitative profits. Our research unpacks the distinct
mechanisms used to promote adoption and abandonment of an increasingly controversial practice,
describes the mismatch between moral and economic arguments, the tension that derailed the
diffusion process, and identifies how the effectiveness of recalibration efforts depends on how
much of practice’s value relies on its opacity. Our study advances existing knowledge on the
diffusion process of controversial practices in multi-constituent contexts, where the diversity of
actors’ interests and judgments makes it complex to predict the outcome.