OSLO, 21 June 2006 — Defeats in football World Cup games, depressing enough for teams concerned, also weigh heavily on the stock markets in their home countries, a study to be published this month shows. According to the study, to be carried in the Journal of Finance on June 29, a World Cup loss during a competition’s group phase shaves an average 0.38 percent off a team’s home stock market index.

But during the knock-out phase of tournaments, markets fall by 0.49 percent, wiping billions off the value of investors’ portfolios.

“To put the results in perspective, 40 basis points (0.40 percent) of the UK market capitalization as of November 2005 is 11.5 billion dollars. This is approximately three times the total market value of all the soccer clubs belonging to the English Premier League,” the authors of the study said. It was conducted by American professors Alex Edmans of MIT and Diego Garcia of Dartmouth College, as well as Norwegian Oeyvind Norli of Oslo’s business school.

They compared stock market indices of 39 footballing nations in the wake of World Cup and other major international matches between January 1973 and December 2004.

“We already know that the markets’ supposed rationality is in fact influenced by the feelings of individuals and we worked on the basis that the feelings which universally affect the humor of investors are related to sport, especially to football,” Norli told AFP. While losses invariably affect stock market levels, victories don’t necessarily cause a bull run, the study found.

Ghana-Born US Teen Prodigy

Can Only Wait for 2010

In Hamburg, Freddy Adu could have been the youngest player in World Cup history and playing for either side in Thursday’s pivotal US-Ghana World Cup showdown had his life taken a different turn.

Instead, the Ghana-born teen prodigy who now also has US citizenship will suit up today for D.C. United in a Major League Soccer match and watch on television from Washington with hopes of playing on the US squad in 2010. The 17-year-old midfielder has no goals this season after 13 games for United, the US league’s pace-setters at 7-1 with five drawn. Adu, who celebrated a birthday June 2, has set up four goals and made 11 starts.

Adu would have been about a month younger than Northern Ireland’s Norman Whiteside as the youngest player in World Cup history had he played in the US or Ghana opener this year.

Adu made it clear last year he was not interested in playing for his African homeland, looking to future opportunities with the American squad even though the president of the Ghana Football Association was ready to welcome him. “I made up my mind to play for the United States some day and I’m sticking to it,” Adu told the Washington Post. “It’s definitely tempting because I want to be at this World Cup so bad but I am going to stay with the United States.”

Had Adu’s parents not emigrated to suburban Washington in 1997 when Freddy was eight, he might have been part of the Ghana squad in its World Cup debut, a sparking one that included a 2-0 upset of second-ranked Czech Republic.

Adu made a bid at playing on this year’s US team, attending a training camp in California last January.

The junior star had spent two years as no better than a reserve for United and was dropped from consideration, although not before playing 20 minutes as a reserve in a goal-less draw friendly with Canada on Jan. 22.

Animal Crackers

The French supporter who brought a cockerel, symbol of Les Bleus, to the match against South Korea in Leipzig, may continue doing so, according to organizers.

Access to the stadium is normally blocked for animals but in this case it appears there is an exception which proves the rule. “I don’t know how he managed to get through the controls — the cockerel must have been considered some kind of toy,” said Horst Schmidt, co-chairman of the organizing committee.

Acting Up?

Italy star Andrea Pirlo says Czech rival Pavel Nedved of Juventus is “an excellent footballer” but also “a good actor.”

Says Pirlo: “He goes down a lot and exaggerates fouls against him.” Nedved will get the chance to defend — or enhance — his standing in Pirlo’s eyes when the two meet tomorrow in a match both sides need to win to assure qualification from Group E .

Cold Water Treatment

Mexico coach Ricardo Lavolpe has on occasion had strained relations with the media — as well as with the organizers for initially smoking on the bench. As if to douse the flames he brought relations with the press to a lowpoint yesterday after throwing a water bottle toward reporters hoping to squeeze a few words out of players following a closed-doors training session.