IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/specre/v5y2024ics2773161824000016.html

Demonstration of the collusion risk mitigation effect of random tie-breaking and dynamic scheduling

Author

Listed:
  • Stronka, Waldemar

Abstract

We study the “groups of three” tournament format which was planned to be implemented in the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Finally, FIFA resigned from the format because its implementation is highly likely to lead to collusion (match-fixing). In our paper, we show that some modifications to this format may significantly reduce the risk of collusion. Such a reduction can be achieved by the following two innovative changes: random tie-breaking based on the goal-difference along with dynamic scheduling. Our Monte Carlo simulations show that the expected number of matches with high risk of collusion is reduced from 5.5 in the FIFA's initial proposal to 0.26 in our proposed design.

Suggested Citation

  • Stronka, Waldemar, 2024. "Demonstration of the collusion risk mitigation effect of random tie-breaking and dynamic scheduling," Sports Economics Review, Elsevier, vol. 5(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:specre:v:5:y:2024:i:c:s2773161824000016
    DOI: 10.1016/j.serev.2024.100025
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2773161824000016
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.serev.2024.100025?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    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. Devriesere, Karel & Csató, László & Goossens, Dries, 2025. "Tournament design: A review from an operational research perspective," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 324(1), pages 1-21.
    2. László Csató, 2025. "Mitigating the risk of tanking in multi-stage tournaments," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 344(1), pages 135-151, January.
    3. L'aszl'o Csat'o & Andr'as Gyimesi, 2026. "Match classification in the last round of four-team round-robin tournaments," Papers 2605.25610, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2026.
    4. Pablo Laliena & F. Javier López, 2025. "Draw procedures for balanced 3-team group rounds in sports competitions," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 346(3), pages 2065-2092, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:eee:specre:v:5:y:2024:i:c:s2773161824000016. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 bibliographic 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.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/sports-economics-review .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.