Why Great Football Teams Are Often Bad Investments

BERLIN - June 12, 2026 - PRLog -- Football fans have always debated who is best, who will win the league and who will lift the World Cup. FanPool, a fantasy trading ecosystem for football, has published a new market study suggesting that fans are now beginning to think less like spectators and more like investors.

The analysis reviews 7,001 trades made by 456 traders across seven domestic European leagues and the FIFA World Cup 2026 market. Based on more than 104,000 FanCredits of trading volume, the study argues that football value is not determined by sporting strength alone. Instead, it is shaped by the gap between public expectations and actual performance.

FanPool describes this as the "Manchester City problem." Clubs such as Manchester City, Arsenal and Real Madrid attract enormous attention and strong confidence, but their future upside may already be priced into market expectations. By contrast, teams just below the elite tier can become more attractive when they have room to outperform. FanPool's trading data shows notable activity around clubs including AFC Bournemouth, Brighton & Hove Albion and Nottingham Forest, suggesting that participants are looking beyond reputation to identify underappreciated value.

"Football has always been a game of opinions. Markets are a game of expectations. The moment you combine the two, people stop asking only who will win and start asking where value exists," said Ekow Yankah, Founder of FanPool.

FanPool has also launched what it describes as the world's first public Relative Form Indicator for World Cup teams. The ranking evaluates national teams using recent performances, opponent strength, venue effects and match importance, and is continuously back-tested against more than 1,000 football matches each month.

As World Cup 2026 approaches, FanPool believes a new question will become central to fan engagement: not only "Who is the best team?" but "Which team represents the best value?" The full analysis is available at https://fanpool.app/blog/football-trading-strategies-2026. The Relative Form Indicator is available at https://fanpool.app/rfi.

About FanPool: FanPool is a fantasy trading ecosystem for football that lets fans build and trade virtual portfolios of football clubs and national teams, earn rewards and compete on portfolio performance. FanPool is operated by Berlin-based EML Sports Innovation GmbH.