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Was Zidane honest or well-informed? How UEFA barely avoided a serious scandal

Author

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  • László Csató

    (Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA SZTAKI) and Corvinus University of Budapest (BCE))

Abstract

UEFA European Championship 1996 qualification is known to violate strategy-proofness. It has been proved recently that a team could be better off by exerting a lower effort: it might be optimal to concede some goals in order to achieve a better position among runners-up, and hence avoid a hazardous play-off. We show that it is not only an irrelevant scenario with a marginal probability since France had an incentive to kick two own goals on its last match against Israel.

Suggested Citation

  • László Csató, 2018. "Was Zidane honest or well-informed? How UEFA barely avoided a serious scandal," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 38(1), pages 152-158.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-17-00950
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Csató, László, 2017. "2018 FIFA World Cup qualification can be manipulated," Corvinus Economics Working Papers (CEWP) 2017/06, Corvinus University of Budapest.
    2. Sonin, Konstantin & Dagaev, Dmitry, 2013. "Winning by Losing: Incentive Incompatibility in Multiple Qualifiers," CEPR Discussion Papers 9373, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Kendall, Graham & Lenten, Liam J.A., 2017. "When sports rules go awry," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 257(2), pages 377-394.
    4. Csató, László, 2017. "European qualifiers to the 2018 FIFA World Cup can be manipulated," MPRA Paper 82652, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Csató, László, 2017. "Tournaments with subsequent group stages are incentive incompatible," MPRA Paper 83269, University Library of Munich, Germany.
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. László Csató, 2019. "UEFA Champions League Entry Has Not Satisfied Strategyproofness in Three Seasons," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 20(7), pages 975-981, October.
    2. Arlegi, Ritxar & Dimitrov, Dinko, 2020. "Fair elimination-type competitions," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 287(2), pages 528-535.
    3. László Csató, 2021. "A comparison of penalty shootout designs in soccer," 4OR, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 183-198, June.
    4. László Csató, 2022. "How to design a multi-stage tournament when some results are carried over?," OR Spectrum: Quantitative Approaches in Management, Springer;Gesellschaft für Operations Research e.V., vol. 44(3), pages 683-707, September.
    5. Csató, László & Petróczy, Dóra Gréta, 2018. "Néhány gondolat a labdarúgás rangsorolási szabályairól a 2018. évi labdarúgó-világbajnokság európai selejtezője kapcsán [Some ideas on ranking rules in association football in the light of the Euro," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(6), pages 632-649.
    6. Csató, László, 2019. "A note on the UEFA Euro 2020 qualifying play-offs," MPRA Paper 93006, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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    JEL classification:

    • D7 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making
    • L8 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services

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