Evaluating the performance of UEFA Champions League scorers

The ranking of football players has always engaged media and supporters worldwide. The different views on ranking are due to two reasons. First, leagues are heterogeneous with various qualities. Second, fans often rely on different performance measures and statistics. Despite the fact that team and player bias will never disappear, this paper aims to objectively evaluate the efficiency of 42 top scorers who have played in the UEFA Champions League (UCL) over a period of six years, based on official match-play “multi-input and output” statistics, using input- and output oriented DEA models.