Ian Mann Szymanski is a sports economist and Kuper is a journalist. They have teamed up to produce an engaging book that is in tune with the spirit of the times.

Much about sport can be explained, and even predicted, by studying data - especially data found outside the sport.

The subtitle of the book is Why England lose and other Curious football phenomena. So, why does England lose? In answering this question, the authors sound very much like development economists. Does England lose because they import too many players at club level? Some countries are unproductive because their inhabitants don't have enough skills, but if you keep importing skills, you never learn. Of course, it could be argued that if England adopted "import substitution" and used only local players, so inferior players would be handed places in Premier League teams, they would have little incentive to improve. The problem with import substitution: it protects bad producers.

There is also another factor: Englishmen who make it to the top are drawn largely from one single and shrinking social group - the traditional working class. Middle-class athletes tend to drift to cricket or rugby instead. When you limit your talent pool, you limit the development of skills. That is why the City of London or Silicon Valley, which draw talent from around the world, are so creative. They tap into a worldwide talent pool.

In the chapter Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: How to avoid silly mistakes in the transfer market, there are boldly drawn lessons for anyone involved in recruiting staff.

Clubs spend fortunes on the wrong transfers. There is little correlation between the sums expended and where the club finishes in the league. Outlays on transfers explain only 16% of their total variation in league position, but spending on the salaries explains 92% of that variation. While the market for players' wages is pretty efficient - the better player earns more - the transfer market is inefficient.

Here are some of the lessons of the transfer market identified by the authors and the parallels to non-sport businesses are glaring.

Stars of recent World Cups or European championships are overvalued. This is influenced by a person's most recent performance: what he did last is not necessarily what he will do next. And the ego issue: buying a big name is a way of saying "Yes, we are a big club."

Certain nationalities are overvalued. A Dutch goalkeeper can fail several times and still land up playing for Barcelona.

An American goalkeeper would have been sent home after the first failure. The most fashionable nationality is Brazilian. A wise club would buy unfashionable nationalities at a discount.

At least, one big English club notices the talent scouts regularly recommending blonde players. The reason bears no relations to prowess but rather how blondes stand out in a field of 22 similar- looking players.

Counter-intuitively, clubs should buy players with personal problems at a discount and then help them deal with their problems. Arsene Wenger of Arsenal took this approach when he helped Tony Adams and Paul Merson combat their addictions. But the usual attitude in football is: "We paid a lot of money for you, now get on with it."

AC Milan is a notable exception, with the attitude that they will take care of everything else, the player must only make sure he plays really well. Real Madrid spent £22-million buying Nicolas Anelka and then spent nothing helping him to adjust. He didn't have anyone to show him around on his first day. He did not even have a locker assigned to him in the changing room. Contrary to popular opinion, soccer clubs don't make money and, say the authors, shouldn't. Soccer is neither big business nor good business. It arguably isn't even a business at all. First in the soccer Money League in 2009 was Real Madrid, with revenues of £325-million. Manchester United was second, with £228-million. But this is revenue, not profit. On the profit tables, Manchester is among the least profitable clubs.

While some of the most famous people are footballers, soccer clubs can't make money because of what economists call, "appropriability". They can't make money out of more than a tiny share of our love of the game. Season tickets at £1000 are expensive, replica shirts are overpriced, and these are once-a-year purchases on the extravagant end of the soccer fanaticism. Most fans see the game on TV at the price of watching the ads. The world, it seems, earns more from soccer than the industry itself does.

This is an insightful book that talks to both an interest in business and in soccer.