No Home Bias in Ghost Games

Dilger, Alexander; Vischer, Lars

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3674876

Cited by 30 publications

(37 citation statements)

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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%

“…The current study aims to test the changes in the home field advantage and its according match statistics as explanatory factors during the exclusion of spectators under COVID-19 (Bryson et al, 2020;Cueva, 2020;Deutscher et al, 2020;Dilger and Vischer, 2020;Ferraresi and Gucciardi, 2020;Fischer and Haucap, 2020;Leitner and Richlan, 2020;McCarrick et al, 2020;Reade et al, 2020;Scoppa, 2020;Tilp and Thaller, 2020;Jiménez Sánchez and Lavín, 2021). Specifically, because of the small sample sizes, we examined whether losing the home field advantage when playing behind closed doors is random rather than meaningful.…”

Section: The Current Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Following the restrictions that were implemented globally to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, spectators were prohibited from attending the matches played toward the end of 2019/2020 season. The absence of the spectators enabled researchers to study the effect of the crowd on the home field advantage in professional soccer across leagues and countries (e.g., Bryson et al, 2020;Cueva, 2020;Deutscher et al, 2020;Dilger and Vischer, 2020;Ferraresi and Gucciardi, 2020;Fischer and Haucap, 2020;Leitner and Richlan, 2020;McCarrick et al, 2020;Reade et al, 2020;Scoppa, 2020;Sors et al, 2020;Tilp and Thaller, 2020). There seems to be overall consensus that the absence of the crowd has a particularly strong effect in the German 1 Note that the same audience that is perceived as facilitative/supportive by the home team may be perceived as inhibitive/threatening by the away team.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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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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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Current Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Yperen

2021

Front. Psychol.

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“…By now, there are numerous studies from various fields regarding the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on football, some of them concentrating on the home advantage effect. Overall, most of these studies indicate that the home advantage tends to decline when games are played behind closed doors (Bryson et al, 2020 ; Dilger and Vischer, 2020 ; Fischer and Haucap, 2020 ; Follert et al, 2020 ; McCarrick et al, 2020 ; Sors et al, 2020 ; Hill and Van Yperen, 2021 ; Konaka, 2021 ; Leitner et al, 2021 ; Sánchez and Lavín, 2021 ; Santana et al, 2021 ; Scoppa, 2021 ; Wunderlich et al, 2021 ). In this context, Bryson et al ( 2020 ) state e.g., that “ without a crowd, fewer cards were awarded to the away teams, reducing home advantage [and that] these results have implications for the influence of social pressure and crowds on the neutrality of decisions.” Other findings indicate that ghost games might also have a direct effect on the (non-verbal) behavior of professional football players, staff and officials on pitch during games (Leitner and Richlan, 2021 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

No Fans–No Pressure: Referees in Professional Football During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Leitner

Richlan

2021

Front. Sports Act. Living

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Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, European elite football (a.k.a. soccer) leagues played the remaining season 2019/20 without or strongly limited attendance of supporters (i.e., “ghost games”). From a sport psychological perspective this situation poses a unique opportunity to investigate the crowd's influence on referee decisions and the associated effect of “home advantage.” A total of 1286 matches–played in the top leagues of Spain, England, Germany, Italy, Russia, Turkey, Austria and the Czech Republic–were analyzed for results, fouls, bookings and reasons for bookings and contrasted between respective matchdays of season 2018/19 (regular attendance) and season 2019/20 (ghost games). Following recent methodological developments in the research on the home advantage effect, four different statistical analyses–including Pollard's traditional method–were used for the assessment of the home advantage effect. There are two main findings. First, home teams were booked significantly more often with yellow cards for committing fouls in ghost games. Most importantly, this effect was independent of the course of the games. In contrast, bookings for other reasons (criticism and unfair sportsmanship) changed similarly for both home and away teams in ghost games. Second, the overall home performance and home advantage effect in the respective elite leagues–identified in the respective matches of the regular 2018/19 season–vanished in the ghost games of the 2019/20 season. We conclude that the lack of supporters in top European football during the COVID-19 pandemic led to decreased social pressure from the ranks on referees, which also had a potential impact on the home advantage. Referees assessed the play of home teams more objectively, leading to increased yellow cards awarded for fouls committed by the home teams. Since there were no significant changes in referee decisions against the away teams, we argue that our observations reflect a reduction of unconscious favoritism of referees for the home teams.

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“…The results are unanimous and find the home advantage to disappear once games were played behind closed doors. Bryson et al (2021) analyse various European football competitions including the German Bundesliga, while Dilger and Vischer (2020) and Fischer and Haucap (2020) focus on Germany only. Cueva (2020) considers a large data set of 41 football leagues stating that the home advantage decreases on average by about one half.…”

Section: The Advantage Of Playing At Homementioning

confidence: 99%

Bookmakers’ mispricing of the disappeared home advantage in the German Bundesliga after the COVID-19 break

2021

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The outbreak of COVID-19 in March 2020 led to a shutdown of economic activities in Europe. This included the sports sector since public gatherings were prohibited. The German Bundesliga was among the first sport leagues realizing a restart without spectators. Several recent studies suggest that the home advantage of teams eroded for the remaining matches. Our paper analyses the reaction by bookmakers to the disappearance of such home advantage. We show that bookmakers had problems to adjust the betting odds in accordance with the disappeared home advantage, opening opportunities for profitable betting strategies.

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No Home Bias in Ghost Games

Cited by 30 publications

References 0 publications

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

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

No Fans–No Pressure: Referees in Professional Football During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Bookmakers’ mispricing of the disappeared home advantage in the German Bundesliga after the COVID-19 break

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