This study analyses the performance of European football clubs which undergo an initial public offering (IPO). We use a unique panel dataset consisting of domestic and international performance data to develop an event study to investigate the effects on a football club’s on-field performance before and after the IPO. The study follows from the observation that, as financial markets are expected to exhibit a positive influence on the economy as a whole, football clubs who access these markets should benefit as well. However, the conclusions of our study are similar to those in the corporate finance literature, where firms who undertake an IPO underperform similar firms in the medium term. Using our metric, football clubs have diminished domestic and international performance after the stock market listing.