“…More recently, studies have focused on aspects that influence refereeing decisions, such as public pressure (Di Corrado, Pellarin, & Agostini, 2011 ; Myers & Balmer, 2012 ; Unkelbach & Memmert, 2010 ), the decision-making process (Burnett, Bishop, Ashford, Williams, & Kinrade, 2017 ; Neville, Salmon, & Read, 2017 ; Souchon et al., 2016 ), or referee self-efficacy (Lirgg, Feltz, & Merrie, 2016 ; Myers, Feltz, Guillén, & Dithurbide, 2012 ). During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, the absence of spectators could be used as a natural experiment and showed that in the absence of spectators, the increased sanctioning of guest teams disappeared (Wunderlich, Weigelt, Rein, & Memmert, 2021 ).…”