IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/applec/v54y2022i58p6639-6655.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The impact of COVID-19 on home advantage: a conditional order-m analysis of football clubs’ efficiency in the top-5 European leagues

Author

Listed:
  • Sergio Destefanis
  • Francesco Addesa
  • Giambattista Rossi

Abstract

This study aims to contribute to the recent literature on the effects of COVID on football teams’ performance, focusing on the impact of ghost games on offensive and defensive technical efficiency. Using season-level data for the top 5 European leagues, a novelty for efficiency studies on football, the analysis compares the ten seasons played before the pandemic outbreak with the only season (2020–21) almost entirely played behind closed doors. A further novel contribution is the methodology – conditional order-m – applied to calculate efficiency scores. Our results show that in the post-COVID season both offensive and defensive efficiency significantly increased for away games, whereas for home games offensive efficiency shows a very slight increase, and defensive efficiency remains basically unchanged. These findings are valid for all the five leagues and provide evidence of a generalized reduction in the home advantage.

Suggested Citation

  • Sergio Destefanis & Francesco Addesa & Giambattista Rossi, 2022. "The impact of COVID-19 on home advantage: a conditional order-m analysis of football clubs’ efficiency in the top-5 European leagues," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(58), pages 6639-6655, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:54:y:2022:i:58:p:6639-6655
    DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2022.2074361
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00036846.2022.2074361
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00036846.2022.2074361?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 search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Endrich, Marek & Gesche, Tobias, 2020. "Home-bias in referee decisions: Evidence from “Ghost Matches” during the Covid19-Pandemic," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    2. Walter C. Neale, 1964. "The Peculiar Economics of Professional Sports," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 78(1), pages 1-14.
    3. Luke S. Benz & Michael J. Lopez, 2023. "Estimating the change in soccer’s home advantage during the Covid-19 pandemic using bivariate Poisson regression," AStA Advances in Statistical Analysis, Springer;German Statistical Society, vol. 107(1), pages 205-232, March.
    4. Léopold Simar & Paul W. Wilson, 2015. "Statistical Approaches for Non-parametric Frontier Models: A Guided Tour," International Statistical Review, International Statistical Institute, vol. 83(1), pages 77-110, April.
    5. Carlos Pestana Barros & Albert Assaf & Fabio Sá-Earp, 2010. "Brazilian Football League Technical Efficiency: A Simar and Wilson Approach," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 11(6), pages 641-651, December.
    6. Manuel Espitia-Escuer & Lucà a Isabel Garcà a-Cebrià n, 2004. "Measuring the Efficiency of Spanish First-Division Soccer Teams," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 5(4), pages 329-346, November.
    7. V. Barnett & S. Hilditch, 1993. "The Effect of an Artificial Pitch Surface on Home Team Performance in Football (Soccer)," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 156(1), pages 39-50, January.
    8. Cinzia Daraio & Léopold Simar & Paul W. Wilson, 2018. "Central limit theorems for conditional efficiency measures and tests of the ‘separability’ condition in non‐parametric, two‐stage models of production," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 21(2), pages 170-191, June.
    9. 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.
    10. Cinzia Daraio & Léopold Simar, 2005. "Introducing Environmental Variables in Nonparametric Frontier Models: a Probabilistic Approach," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 93-121, September.
    11. Daraio, Cinzia & Simar, Leopold & Wilson, Paul, 2018. "Central limit theorems for conditional efficiency measures and tests of the ‘separability’ condition in non-parametric, two-stage models of production," LIDAM Reprints ISBA 2018023, Université catholique de Louvain, Institute of Statistics, Biostatistics and Actuarial Sciences (ISBA).
    12. Bryson, Alex & Dolton, Peter & Reade, J. James & Schreyer, Dominik & Singleton, Carl, 2021. "Causal effects of an absent crowd on performances and refereeing decisions during Covid-19," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    13. J. James Reade & Dominik Schreyer & Carl Singleton, 2022. "Eliminating supportive crowds reduces referee bias," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(3), pages 1416-1436, July.
    14. Michael Christian Leitner & Fabio Richlan, 2021. "Analysis System for Emotional Behavior in Football (ASEB-F): matches of FC Red Bull Salzburg without supporters during the COVID-19 pandemic," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-11, December.
    15. I. García-Sánchez, 2007. "Efficiency and effectiveness of Spanish football teams: a three-stage-DEA approach," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 15(1), pages 21-45, March.
    16. Fiona Carmichael & Dennis Thomas & Robert Ward, 2000. "Team performance: the case of English Premiership football," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(1), pages 31-45.
    17. Luis Garicano & Ignacio Palacios-Huerta & Canice Prendergast, 2005. "Favoritism Under Social Pressure," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(2), pages 208-216, May.
    18. Kristof De Witte & Mika Kortelainen, 2013. "What explains the performance of students in a heterogeneous environment? Conditional efficiency estimation with continuous and discrete environmental variables," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(17), pages 2401-2412, June.
    19. Li, Qi & Racine, Jeffrey S, 2008. "Nonparametric Estimation of Conditional CDF and Quantile Functions With Mixed Categorical and Continuous Data," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 26, pages 423-434.
    20. Michela Ponzo & Vincenzo Scoppa, 2018. "Does the Home Advantage Depend on Crowd Support? Evidence From Same-Stadium Derbies," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(4), pages 562-582, May.
    21. Stefan Szymanski, 2010. "The Economic Design of Sporting Contests," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: The Comparative Economics of Sport, chapter 1, pages 1-78, Palgrave Macmillan.
    22. Kai Fischer & Justus Haucap, 2021. "Does Crowd Support Drive the Home Advantage in Professional Football? Evidence from German Ghost Games during the COVID-19 Pandemic," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 22(8), pages 982-1008, December.
    23. Cazals, Catherine & Florens, Jean-Pierre & Simar, Leopold, 2002. "Nonparametric frontier estimation: a robust approach," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 106(1), pages 1-25, January.
    24. Rajiv D. Banker & Richard C. Morey, 1986. "Efficiency Analysis for Exogenously Fixed Inputs and Outputs," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 34(4), pages 513-521, August.
    25. Francisco González-Gómez & Andrés J. Picazo-Tadeo, 2010. "Can We Be Satisfied With Our Football Team? Evidence From Spanish Professional Football," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 11(4), pages 418-442, August.
    26. Michael Christian Leitner & Frank Daumann & Florian Follert & Fabio Richlan, 2023. "The cauldron has cooled down: a systematic literature review on home advantage in football during the COVID-19 pandemic from a socio-economic and psychological perspective," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 73(2), pages 605-633, June.
    27. Charles, Vincent & Aparicio, Juan & Zhu, Joe, 2019. "The curse of dimensionality of decision-making units: A simple approach to increase the discriminatory power of data envelopment analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 279(3), pages 929-940.
    28. Scoppa, Vincenzo, 2021. "Social pressure in the stadiums: Do agents change behavior without crowd support?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    29. Hannes Lepschy & Hagen Wäsche & Alexander Woll, 2020. "Success factors in football: an analysis of the German Bundesliga," International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(2), pages 150-164, March.
    30. Ferraresi, Massimiliano & Gucciardi, Gianluca, 2021. "Who chokes on a penalty kick? Social environment and individual performance during Covid-19 times," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    31. Kneip, Alois & Park, Byeong U. & Simar, Léopold, 1998. "A Note On The Convergence Of Nonparametric Dea Estimators For Production Efficiency Scores," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(6), pages 783-793, December.
    32. Manuel Espitia-Escuer & Lucia Isabel Garcia-Cebrián, 2010. "Measurement of the efficiency of football teams in the Champions League," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(6), pages 373-386.
    33. Boscá, José E. & Liern, Vicente & Martínez, Aurelio & Sala, Ramøn, 2009. "Increasing offensive or defensive efficiency? An analysis of Italian and Spanish football," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 63-78, February.
    34. Peter Dawson & Stephen Dobson & Bill Gerrard, 2000. "Stochastic Frontiers and the Temporal Structure of Managerial Efficiency in English Soccer," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 1(4), pages 341-362, November.
    35. Sala-Garrido Ramon & Liern Carrión Vicente & Martinez Esteve Aurelio & Boscá José E., 2009. "Analysis and Evolution of Efficiency in the Spanish Soccer League (2000/01 - 2007/08)," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-24, January.
    36. Rui Matos & Diogo Monteiro & Raul Antunes & Diogo Mendes & João Botas & João Clemente & Nuno Amaro, 2021. "Home-Advantage during COVID-19: An Analysis in Portuguese Football League," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(7), pages 1-8, April.
    37. Simar, Leopold & Wilson, Paul W., 2007. "Estimation and inference in two-stage, semi-parametric models of production processes," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 136(1), pages 31-64, January.
    38. Carlos Pestana Barros & Stephanie Leach, 2006. "Performance evaluation of the English Premier Football League with data envelopment analysis," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(12), pages 1449-1458.
    39. A. Charnes & W. W. Cooper & E. Rhodes, 1981. "Evaluating Program and Managerial Efficiency: An Application of Data Envelopment Analysis to Program Follow Through," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(6), pages 668-697, June.
    40. Fiona Carmichael & Dennis Thomas & Robert Ward, 2001. "Production and Efficiency in Association Football," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 2(3), pages 228-243, August.
    41. Timothy J. Coelli & D.S. Prasada Rao & Christopher J. O’Donnell & George E. Battese, 2005. "An Introduction to Efficiency and Productivity Analysis," Springer Books, Springer, edition 0, number 978-0-387-25895-9, November.
    42. Villa, G. & Lozano, S., 2016. "Assessing the scoring efficiency of a football match," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 255(2), pages 559-569.
    43. Torben Tiedemann & Tammo Francksen & Uwe Latacz-Lohmann, 2011. "Assessing the performance of German Bundesliga football players: a non-parametric metafrontier approach," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 19(4), pages 571-587, December.
    44. Dieter J. Haas, 2003. "Productive efficiency of English football teams-a data envelopment analysis approach," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(5), pages 403-410.
    45. Sloane, Peter J, 1971. "The Economics of Professional Football: The Football Club as a Utility Maximiser," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 18(2), pages 121-146, June.
    46. António S. Ribeiro & Francisco Lima, 2012. "Portuguese football league efficiency and players' wages," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(6), pages 599-602, April.
    47. Carlos Barros & Pedro Garcia-del-Barrio, 2011. "Productivity drivers and market dynamics in the Spanish first division football league," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 35(1), pages 5-13, February.
    48. Cueva, Carlos, 2020. "Animal Spirits in the Beautiful Game. Testing social pressure in professional football during the COVID-19 lockdown," OSF Preprints hczkj, Center for Open Science.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kostas Kounetas, 2014. "Greek football clubs’ efficiency before and after Euro 2004 Victory: a bootstrap approach," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 22(4), pages 623-645, December.
    2. Fiona Carmichael & Giambattista Rossi & Denis Thomas, 2017. "Production, Efficiency, and Corruption in Italian Serie A Football," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 18(1), pages 34-57, January.
    3. Fabíola Zambom-Ferraresi & Lucía Isabel García-Cebrián & Fernando Lera-López & Belén Iráizoz, 2017. "Performance Evaluation in the UEFA Champions League," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 18(5), pages 448-470, June.
    4. Michael Christian Leitner & Frank Daumann & Florian Follert & Fabio Richlan, 2023. "The cauldron has cooled down: a systematic literature review on home advantage in football during the COVID-19 pandemic from a socio-economic and psychological perspective," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 73(2), pages 605-633, June.
    5. Lucía Isabel García-Cebrián & Fabíola Zambom-Ferraresi & Fernando Lera-López, 2018. "Efficiency in European football teams using WindowDEA: analysis and evolution," International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 67(9), pages 2126-2148, November.
    6. J. Brandon Bolen & Jon Rezek & Joshua D. Pitts, 2019. "Performance Efficiency in NCAA Basketball," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 20(2), pages 218-241, February.
    7. Villa, G. & Lozano, S., 2016. "Assessing the scoring efficiency of a football match," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 255(2), pages 559-569.
    8. Isidoro Guzmán-Raja & Manuela Guzmán-Raja, 2021. "Measuring the Efficiency of Football Clubs Using Data Envelopment Analysis: Empirical Evidence From Spanish Professional Football," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(1), pages 21582440219, February.
    9. Manuel Espitia‐Escuer & Lucia Isabel Garcia‐Cebrian, 2020. "Efficiency of football teams from an organisation management perspective," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(3), pages 321-338, April.
    10. Kai Fischer & Justus Haucap, 2022. "Home advantage in professional soccer and betting market efficiency: The role of spectator crowds," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(2), pages 294-316, May.
    11. Carlos Pestana Barros & Gaël Bertrand & Laurent Botti & Scott Tainsky, 2014. "Cost efficiency of French rugby clubs," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(23), pages 2721-2732, August.
    12. J. James Reade & Dominik Schreyer & Carl Singleton, 2022. "Eliminating supportive crowds reduces referee bias," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(3), pages 1416-1436, July.
    13. Kai Fischer & Justus Haucap, 2021. "Does Crowd Support Drive the Home Advantage in Professional Football? Evidence from German Ghost Games during the COVID-19 Pandemic," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 22(8), pages 982-1008, December.
    14. Carl Singleton & J. James Reade & Dominik Schreyer, 2023. "A decade of violence and empty stadiums in Egypt: when does emotion from the terraces affect behaviour on the pitch?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 65(3), pages 1487-1507, September.
    15. Ana Pérez-González & Pablo Carlos & Elisa Alén, 2022. "An analysis of the efficiency of football clubs in the Spanish First Division through a two-stage relational network DEA model: a simulation study," Operational Research, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 3089-3112, July.
    16. Justin Ehrlich & Joel Potter, 2023. "Estimating the effect of attendance on home advantage in the National Basketball Association," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(11), pages 1471-1482, June.
    17. Fiona Carmichael & Dennis Thomas, 2014. "Team performance: production and efficiency in football," Chapters, in: John Goddard & Peter Sloane (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Professional Football, chapter 10, pages 143-165, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    18. Carlos Pestana Barros & Albert Assaf & Fabio Sá-Earp, 2010. "Brazilian Football League Technical Efficiency: A Simar and Wilson Approach," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 11(6), pages 641-651, December.
    19. Brad R. Humphreys & Alexander Marsella & Levi Perez, 2022. "The effect of monitoring and crowds on crime and law enforcement: A natural experiment from European football," Working Papers 22-08, Department of Economics, West Virginia University.
    20. Amir Moradi-Motlagh & Ali Emrouznejad, 2022. "The origins and development of statistical approaches in non-parametric frontier models: a survey of the first two decades of scholarly literature (1998–2020)," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 318(1), pages 713-741, November.

    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:taf:applec:v:54:y:2022:i:58:p:6639-6655. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RAEC20 .

    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.