What a fairer 24 team UEFA Euro could look like

Abstract

In 2016, for the first time, the UEFA European Championship gathered 24 men's national teams. It consisted of a group stage made of 6 groups of 4, followed by a knockout stage starting with the round of 16. We critically examine a number of flaws in the design of the knockout bracket that was used by UEFA: group advantage, lack of win incentive, and arbitrary choices. We suggest two fairer procedures that satisfy the balance and group diversity constraints but eliminate group advantage and significantly increase win incentive, hence interest, in the group stage. The suggested procedures use a global ranking of the 16 teams qualified to the knockout stage based on their performance during the group stage. They apply to any tournament consisting of a round robin stage made of 6 groups of 4, followed by a knockout stage. UEFA has decided to keep the 2016 format for Euro 2020, but has used our work to modify the knockout bracket so as to minimize group advantage.

Optimal Tournament Design: Lessons From the Men’s Handball Champions League

“…The design of a hybrid tournament consisting of round-robin groups followed by a knock-out phase raises several interesting theoretical questions on various fields such as fairness (Cea et al, 2020;Guyon, 2018), or strategy-proofness (Csató, 2019b(Csató, , 2020bDagaev & Sonin, 2018;Pauly, 2014;Vong, 2017). The current paper has attempted to explore the potential effects of creating groups with different quality through the example of the EHF Champions League, the most prestigious men's handball club competition in Europe.…”

“…Seeding may play a substantial role in knock-out tournaments (Dagaev & Suzdaltsev, 2018;Groh et al, 2012;Hwang, 1982;Karpov, 2016Karpov, , 2018Marchand, 2002;Schwenk, 2000). Although the knock-out stage of competition formats Dð8 þ 6Þ and Dð4 Â 7Þ is predetermined by the previous group stage (see Figures A.1-A.2)-with the exception of the Final Four when there is only one pot-the clubs should be drawn into groups before the start of the tournament, which may affect its outcome (Boczoń & Wilson, 2018;Cea et al, 2020;Dagaev & Rudyak, 2019;Guyon, 2015;Guyon, 2018;Laliena & López, 2019). The knock-out brackets of format Dð4 Â 6Þ are also random.…”

A simulation comparison of tournament designs for the World Men's Handball Championships

“…It is not an issue in our case since the knockout stage of all formats is immediately determined by the previous group stage (see Figures A.1-A.4). On the other hand, all participants should be drawn into groups before the start of the tournament, and this policy may influence the outcome, too (Guyon, 2015;Dagaev and Rudyak, 2019;Guyon, 2018;Laliena and López, 2018). In the recent World Men's Handball Championships, the pots were determined on the basis of geography and other aspects such as qualification results.…”

“…Ignoring the assignment of referees (Alarcón et al, 2014;Atan and Hüseyinoǧlu, 2017) -who may be biased, for example, towards the home team (Garicano et al, 2005) -, organisers and sports governing bodies have supposedly no influence on match outcomes. However, they can certainly choose other characteristics of a tournament, including the format (Scarf et al, 2009;Scarf and Yusof, 2011;Guyon, 2018), the schedule of individual matches (Ribeiro, 2012;Atan and Hüseyinoǧlu, 2017;Durán et al, 2017), the seeding policy (Guyon, 2015;Laliena and López, 2018), or the progression rules (Csató, 2018a(Csató, ,b, 2019bDagaev and Sonin, 2018;Vong, 2017). The current paper considers tournament designs as probabilistic mechanisms that select high-quality alternatives (players or teams) in a noisy environment (Ryvkin, 2010).…”

Two issues of the UEFA Euro 2020 qualifying play-offs

“…Furthermore, it is even possible that the two teams playing a match are both interested in a draw (Csató 2020c). Guyon (2018) finds several flaws in the design of the UEFA Euro 2016 and suggests two fairer procedures. UEFA has used these results to modify the knockout bracket of the UEFA Euro 2020 in order to reduce its unfairness.…”