Home-bias in referee decisions: Evidence from “Ghost Matches” during the Covid19-Pandemic

Endrich, Marek; Gesche, Tobias

doi:10.1016/j.econlet.2020.109621

Cited by 69 publications

(62 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Although tactical and decision making suggestions had also been proposed in the recent literature (Azevedo et al 2020), recommendations to watch previous selfperformances and to discuss ideas with teammates taking coach's directives or use virtual reality to training decision making, the gap between these actions and actual play seems that cannot be overcame. Some other reasons can affect the home advantage, such as referees can be influenced by a home crowd support and thus be more likely to award marginal decisions in favor of the home team (Pollard 2008), especially if we consider a higher number of fouls from the h me team after SD, supporting to these findings another study verified that referees gave fewer fouls o and yellow cards for the home team compared to the away team at pre-Covid 19 analysis (Endrich and Gesche 2020). Then, the stadium supporters and their absence after SD may have contributed to performance change for home and away teams.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 57%

An analysis of Bundesliga matches before and after social distancing by COVID-19

Santana

Bettega

Dellagrana

2021

Science and Medicine in Football

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Methods: Variables from 305 matches from 2019/2020 Bundesliga season were analyzed. Normality, mean comparisons, analysis of variance and effect sizes were performed. Results: After SD, lower values were observed for goals attempt and distance covered, while higher values were found for passes accuracy and fouls committed (p < 0.05). Home teams before SD presented higher number of goals scored at 2 nd half and less fouls committed than visiting opponents, after SD away teams had higher number of goals scored at the same half (p = 0.043) and a similar number of fouls (p = 0.035). Home teams performed more sprints than visiting opponents before SD, but after SD no difference was observed between home and away teams (p = 0.042). Total distance covered for both home and away teams were lower after SD (p = 0.041). Home teams presented higher values of goal attempts to the target, but changing from small to trivial effects sizes (ES) after SD. However, home advantage was 50.32 ± 19.06% before SD, after SD comeback the home advantage was 40.37 ± 26.08% (ES = 0.45). Conclusions:The return to football pitch without stadium supporters, affected some game and physical variables, as well as home advantage.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 57%

An analysis of Bundesliga matches before and after social distancing by COVID-19

Santana

Bettega

Dellagrana

2021

Science and Medicine in Football

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“…Addressing team and referee heterogeneity, we found average effects of playing behind closed doors in the 2019/20 season that were consistent with the aforementioned pre-Covid-19 estimates, which had relied on much smaller samples of matches: no significant general impacts on match outcomes or score lines, but fewer yellow cards awarded to away teams (Bryson et al, 2021). There have been several other studies of these patterns since Covid-19, either using sub-samples of our data (e.g., Endrich and Gesche, 2020) or alternative empirical approaches (e.g., Benz and Lopez, 2020;Scoppa, 2021), finding similar results (see the summary in .…”

Section: Behaviour Bias and Social Pressure: Sport Behind Closed Doorssupporting

confidence: 84%

What Can We Learn About Economics from Sport during COVID-19?

et al. 2021

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The economics of sport and how sport provides insights into economics have experienced exogenous shocks from Covid-19, facilitating many natural experiments. These have provided partial answers to questions of: how airborne viruses may spread in crowds; how crowds respond to the risk and information about infection; how the absence of crowds may affect social pressure and arbitration decisions; and how quickly betting markets respond to new information. We review this evidence and advise how sports economics research could continue to be most valuable to policymakers.

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“…In recent studies, the most important explanation for the home field advantage in soccer that is beginning to surface is the refereeing bias towards the home team (Pollard and Gómez, 2014;Bryson et al, 2020;Cueva, 2020;Dilger and Vischer 2020;Endrich and Gesche, 2020;McCarrick et al, 2020;Reade et al, 2020;Scoppa, 2020;Tilp and Thaller 2020). For example, Reade et al (2020) examined soccer matches played without spectators due to penalties for corruption or abusive behavior by the fans.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Losing the Home Field Advantage When Playing Behind Closed Doors During COVID-19: Change or Chance?

Yperen

2021

Front. Psychol.

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Due to restrictions against the COVID-19 pandemic, spectators were not allowed to attend soccer matches at the end of the 2019/2020 season. Previous studies suggest that the absence of a home crowd changes the home field advantage in terms of match outcomes, offensive performance, and referee decisions. However, because of the small sample sizes, these changes may be random rather than meaningful. To test this, we created 1,000,000 randomized samples from the previous four seasons with the exact same number of matches played behind closed doors in Europe’s four most elite soccer leagues at the end of the 2019/2020 season. We found that across countries (Germany, Spain, Italy, and England), performance indices and referee decisions (except red cards) indeed changed to the detriment of the home team beyond the level of chance. However, this overall pattern could be ascribed to specific countries. Most importantly, the proportion of points won by the home teams declined significantly only in Germany, which was accompanied by a meaningful increase in (1) the proportion of goals scored by the away teams and (2) the proportion of yellow cards given to the home teams. We conclude that the home field advantage may indeed be lost when spectators are absent. However, in future studies, more detailed behavioral analyses are needed to determine the robustness and the behavioral determinants of this phenomenon across leagues and countries.

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Home-bias in referee decisions: Evidence from “Ghost Matches” during the Covid19-Pandemic

Cited by 69 publications

References 10 publications

An analysis of Bundesliga matches before and after social distancing by COVID-19

An analysis of Bundesliga matches before and after social distancing by COVID-19

What Can We Learn About Economics from Sport during COVID-19?

Losing the Home Field Advantage When Playing Behind Closed Doors During COVID-19: Change or Chance?

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