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Factors affecting home advantage in football World Cup qualification

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  • Richard Pollard
  • Vasilis Armatas

Abstract

An analysis is made of home advantage in the group stages of qualification for the 2006, 2010 and 2014 football World Cup finals, the first such study of national teams worldwide in a competitive setting. Home advantage was greatest in Africa and South America where the home team won just over 69% of all points earned; it was lowest in Europe (56%). Bolivia was the country with the greatest home advantage. Using each of the 2040 games as the observational units, a general linear model produced a significant fit to the data (R2 = 0.326), home points being the dependent variable, with a set of factors believed to influence home advantage as predictor variables. After controlling for team strength and allowing for the effects of other variables in the model, home points were significantly related to altitude of the home stadium, crowd size and number of time zones crossed by the visiting team (all p < 0.05). There was no significant effect for distance travelled by the away team, the existence of a running track or crowd density. Referees, especially in Africa, issued red cards and awarded penalties against the away team significantly more often than against the home team.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard Pollard & Vasilis Armatas, 2017. "Factors affecting home advantage in football World Cup qualification," International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(1-2), pages 121-135, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:rpanxx:v:17:y:2017:i:1-2:p:121-135
    DOI: 10.1080/24748668.2017.1304031
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. van Damme, Nils & Baert, Stijn, 2019. "Home advantage in European international soccer: Which dimension of distance matters?," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 13, pages 1-17.
    2. van Ours, Jan C., 2017. "Artificial Pitches and Unfair Home Advantage in Professional Football," CEPR Discussion Papers 12341, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Francisco J. Bahamonde-Birke & Ramón Andrés Bahamonde-Birke, 2023. "About the “Away Goals Rule†in Association Football. Does Scrapping the Rule Increase the Fairness of the Game?," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 24(3), pages 310-328, April.
    4. Jordi Arboix-Alió & Guillem Trabal & Bernat Buscà & Javier Peña & Adrià Arboix & Raúl Hileno, 2021. "The Behaviour of Home Advantage during the COVID-19 Pandemic in European Rink Hockey Leagues," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(1), pages 1-12, December.
    5. Thomas Peeters & Jan C. Ours, 2021. "Seasonal Home Advantage in English Professional Football; 1974–2018," De Economist, Springer, vol. 169(1), pages 107-126, February.
    6. Thomas Peeters & Jan C. van Ours, 2020. "Seasonal Home Advantage in English Professional Football; 1973-2018," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 20-025/V, Tinbergen Institute.
    7. Jan C. van Ours, 2017. "Artificial Pitches and Unfair Home Advantage in Professional Football," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 17-093/V, Tinbergen Institute.
    8. Gong, Bingnan & Zhou, Changjing & Gómez, Miguel-Ángel & Buldú, J.M., 2023. "Identifiability of Chinese football teams: A complex networks approach," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).

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