IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jorssa/v170y2007i1p231-250.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Are football referees really biased and inconsistent?: evidence on the incidence of disciplinary sanction in the English Premier League

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Dawson
  • Stephen Dobson
  • John Goddard
  • John Wilson

Abstract

The paper presents a statistical analysis of patterns in the incidence of disciplinary sanction (yellow and red cards) that were taken against players in the English Premier League over the period 1996-2003. Several questions concerning sources of inconsistency and bias in refereeing standards are examined. Evidence is found to support a time consistency hypothesis, that the average incidence of disciplinary sanction is predominantly stable over time. However, a refereeing consistency hypothesis, that the incidence of disciplinary sanction does not vary between referees, is rejected. The tendency for away teams to incur more disciplinary points than home teams cannot be attributed to the home advantage effect on match results and appears to be due to a refereeing bias favouring the home team. Copyright 2007 Royal Statistical Society.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Dawson & Stephen Dobson & John Goddard & John Wilson, 2007. "Are football referees really biased and inconsistent?: evidence on the incidence of disciplinary sanction in the English Premier League," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 170(1), pages 231-250.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jorssa:v:170:y:2007:i:1:p:231-250
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-985X.2006.00451.x
    File Function: link to full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Roberto Antonietti, 2008. "Il ruolo economico dell’arbitro di calcio: una rassegna della letteratura e alcune questioni aperte," Rivista di Diritto ed Economia dello Sport, Centro di diritto e business dello Sport, vol. 4(3), pages 75-103, Dicembre.
    2. Jacek Rothert & Douglas N. VanDerwerken & Brice M. Nguelifack, 2016. "Does the threat of suspension curb dangerous behavior in soccer? A case study from the Premier League," Departmental Working Papers 52, United States Naval Academy Department of Economics.
    3. Giacomo De Luca & Jeroen Schokkaert & Jo Swinnen, 2011. "Cultural Differences, Assimilation and Behavior: Player Nationality and Penalties in Football," LICOS Discussion Papers 29711, LICOS - Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance, KU Leuven.
    4. Dorian Owen, 2014. "Measurement of competitive balance and uncertainty of outcome," Chapters,in: Handbook on the Economics of Professional Football, chapter 3, pages 41-59 Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Raul Caruso & Marco Di Domizio & David A. Savage, 2015. "Hic Sunt Leones! The role of national identity on aggressiveness between national football teams," DISCE - Quaderni dell'Istituto di Politica Economica ispe0076, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    6. repec:lan:wpaper:3946 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Barry Reilly & Robert Witt, 2016. "Disciplinary Sanction and Social Pressure in English Premiership Soccer," Working Paper Series 08816, Department of Economics, University of Sussex.
    8. Edoardo Gallo & Thomas Grund & J. James Reade, 2013. "Punishing the Foreigner: Implicit Discrimination in the Premier League Based on Oppositional Identity," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 75(1), pages 136-156, February.
    9. repec:bla:coecpo:v:36:y:2018:i:1:p:183-191 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Hlasny, V. & Kolaric, S., 2015. "Catch Me If You Can - Referee–Team Relationships and Disciplinary Cautions in Football," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 74994, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    11. Dawson, Peter & Dobson, Stephen, 2010. "The influence of social pressure and nationality on individual decisions: Evidence from the behaviour of referees," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 181-191, April.
    12. Bryson, Alex & Buraimo, Babatunde & Simmons, Rob, 2011. "Do salaries improve worker performance?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 424-433, August.
    13. Page, Katie & Page, Lionel, 2010. "Alone against the crowd: Individual differences in referees' ability to cope under pressure," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 192-199, April.
    14. Thomas Dohmen & Jan Sauermann, 2016. "Referee Bias," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 679-695, September.
    15. Frieling, Julius & Pohlkamp, Stefanie & Stöver, Jana & Vöpel, Henning, 2013. "Suarez und die "Hand Gottes": Wie fair ist Fußball?," HWWI Policy Papers 80, Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI).
    16. Raul Caruso & Marco Di Domizio, 2013. "Allo Stadio Come Alla Guerra? Ostilità Internazionale E Aggressività Sul Campo Di Calcio," Rivista di Diritto ed Economia dello Sport, Centro di diritto e business dello Sport, vol. 9(2), pages 127-142, settembre.
    17. Stephen Dobson & John Goddard, 2008. "Strategic Behaviour and Risk Taking in Football," Working Papers 0805, University of Crete, Department of Economics.
    18. Andrés J. Picazo-Tadeo & Francisco González-Gómez & Jorge Guardiola, 2011. "The importance of time in referee home bias due to social pressure. Evidence from Spanish football," FEG Working Paper Series 03/11, Faculty of Economics and Business (University of Granada).
    19. Reilly, Barry & Witt, Robert, 2011. "Disciplinary sanctions in English Premiership Football: Is there a racial dimension?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 360-370, June.
    20. Dobson, Stephen & Goddard, John, 2010. "Optimizing strategic behaviour in a dynamic setting in professional team sports," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 205(3), pages 661-669, September.
    21. Seckin, Aylin & Pollard, Richard, 2007. "Home advantage in Turkish professional soccer," MPRA Paper 14323, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2008.
    22. Andrés Picazo-Tadeo & Francisco Gónzalez-Gómez & Jorge Guardiola Wanden-Berghe, 2011. "Referee home bias due to social pressure. Evidence from Spanish football," Working Papers 1119, Department of Applied Economics II, Universidad de Valencia.
    23. repec:bla:kyklos:v:70:y:2017:i:4:p:511-545 is not listed on IDEAS
    24. Caruso, Raul & Di Domizio, Marco, 2013. "International hostility and aggressiveness on the soccer pitch Evidence from European Championships and World Cups for the period 2000-2012," MPRA Paper 50099, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    25. Stephen Dobson & John Goddard & Frank Stahler, 2008. "Effort levels in contests: an empirical application of the Tullock model," Working Papers 2008/9, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham Business School, Economics Division.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jorssa:v:170:y:2007:i:1:p:231-250. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Wiley-Blackwell Digital Licensing) or (Christopher F. Baum). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/rssssea.html .

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.