Purpose – Nowadays, interest on football industry is increasing enough to influence the structure of the sector and the nature of the sport. The need to hire specialized managers with distinctive skills has emerged. It is necessary to evaluate managers’ performance, in order to define if the firm objectives are in compliance with managers’ ones. However, traditional models are based on profits maximization and sporting performance maximization under a defined budget. They are not able to properly explain the reality because these tools do not consider every aspects of the football industry. Therefore, a new managers’ objective function and new managerial tools have to be identified. The research aims to determine an innovative model based on intellectual capital, able to evaluate managers’ performance. Design/methodology/approach – The research proposes a quali-quantitative method with an empirical application. The study identifies intellectual capital development as determinant of clubs success. The intellectual capital of professional football clubs has been identified in three components: the first team players, the brand and the right of qualification for the competition on sporting merit. In order to check if intellectual capital could represent a management control system, the traditional objective-function of professional football clubs have been analysed and an application of the intellectual capital model has been carried out on seven Italian Serie A football clubs. For each club, the components of intellectual capital have been identified considering 2011/2012 and 2012/2013 seasons. Originality/value – This methodology provides a control system of managers’ performance for company ownership. The competition between football clubs is very intensified and it is necessary to invest in managers’ skills efficiency to improve intellectual capital value of football clubs. In this perspective, the originality of the research is to offer a practical application of intellectual capital as a management control system. The research aims to demonstrate that the intellectual capital objective function could strike a balance between sporting performance maximization and economic result maximization. Practical implications – The outcomes of the application of the new model based on intellectual capital allow to define a new use of it as an evaluation tool for football clubs’ managers, overcoming the traditional models, which do not consider the job of manager. Furthermore, the new objective function defined by the research allows managers to make strategic decisions finalised to achieve clubs success in compliance with ownership aims.