Abstract. The purpose of the paper is to find out and to show how much money Romanian football has attracted from overseas (especially from Europe, the main sales market), as a result of footballer exports during 2006 and 2011. The data analysis wants to show if Romanian football makes more losses or profits as a result of footballer trading with foreign countries. The answer is given by some economic performance indicators, whose method of calculation is widely described in the methodology section, which indicates also the source of the primary data. The research reaches to the conclusion that footballer exports from Romania are insufficient (both qualitative and quantitative) in order to ensure the competitivity of Romanian clubs in comparison to their Western-European counterparts. Another finding is that the average income from footballer exports is not even enough to cover the wages of some players. Thus, the research suggests that, next to the continuation of footballer trading, clubs should also seek to diversify their revenue sources. Next to the conclusions, the paper ends with a presentation of the research limitations and with suggestions for further research.

Keywords: footballer trading; footballer exports; transfers.