The Role of Crowd Support on Home Advantage during COVID-19 Restrictions on Italian Football Competitions. Comparison between 2018–19 and 2020–21 Seasons of the Italian Serie A and Serie B Championships

Abstract

The home advantage (HA) affects football competitions, especially due to the presence of crowd support. Even though several studies demonstrated that HA (which is influenced by the crowd) decreased in recent years, the empty stadia caused by COVID-19 restrictions offered unique situations to explore and quantify HA. For this reason, we aimed to assess HA in two seasons of the major Italian Championships. We conducted an observational study with the data from the last three seasons of the Italian football championship A–B series, analyzing a total of 2.964 individual game scores. To quantify the HA, the number of points won at home was calculated as a percentage of the total number of points won, home and away. In every season and for every team classification, HA was found (scored points > 50% in home matches). We reported a difference in HA median score for Serie B. Additionally, a difference was found in Serie A for middle-ranking HA median scores in the two seasons compared (p-value = 0.017), which was similarly found in Serie B (p-value = 0.009). The number of penalties was lower in the season with a crowd compared to one without a crowd (p = 0.001). The HA did not disappear in empty stadiums, so there must be other contributing factors. Additionally, we found that the referees were biased by the presence of the crowd in favor of the home teams, and this result could be considered by the football association during referees’ training and formation.

The Importance of Crowd Support and Team Quality to Home Advantage in Brazilian Soccer League First Division

“…Likewise, for several Europe Soccer Leagues, fewer points were obtained by home teams during matches crowd support (McCarrick et al, 2021;Sánchez & Lavín, 2020). On the other hand, in other Soccer Leagues the absence of an audience due to quarantine did not affect the HA (Matos et al, 2021;Sánchez & Lavín, 2020;Vandoni et al, 2022;Wunderlich et al, 2021).…”

“…Although crowd support can be considered a critical factor related to HA (Pollard & Pollard, 2005), controversial results have been observed in the literature as some previous studies showed reductions in HA (McCarrick et al, 2021;Ribeiro et al, 2022;Sánchez & Lavín, 2020;Santana et al, 2021), while other studies did not find changes in HA without crowd support (Matos et al, 2021;Sánchez & Lavín, 2020;Vandoni et al, 2022;Wunderlich et al, 2021). The relationship between HA and crowd support should be clarified in the sport science area, since diverse factors influence the crowd support, such as the size, density, and intensity of the crowd, proximity to the field of play, territoriality, and distances travelled by away teams (Boyko et al, 2007;Nevill et al, 1996;Pollard, 2008).…”

Is crowd support important in professional football’s home advantage? A systematic review based on covid-19 effect<b></b>

“…Home teams secured fewer points while receiving more cards (Leitner & Richlan, 2021a). Italian Serie A and B showed no significant pre/post-pandemic differences in average points (Vandoni et al, 2022).…”

Effect of COVID-19 on Key Performance Indicators of Spanish Professional Soccer League

“…However, a knowledge gap persists around impacts on key performance indicators for notational analysis. While initial research has uncovered decreased home advantages when examining factors like referee decisions, fouls, and disciplinary cards without fans present [ 26 , 27 ], questions remain about alterations in indicators tied to technical aspects and playing styles [ 25 , 28 ].…”