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Biases and Strategic Behavior in Performance Evaluation: The Case of the FIFA’s Best Soccer Player Award

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Abstract

In this paper, we study biases in performance evaluation by analyzing votes for the FIFA Ballon d’Or award for best soccer player, the most prestigious award in the sport. We find that ‘similarity’ biases are substantial, with jury members disproportionately voting for candidates from their own country, own national team, own continent, and own league team. Further, we show that the impact of these biases on the total number of votes a candidate receives is fairly limited and hence is likely to affect the outcome of this competition only on rare occasions where the difference in quality between the leading candidates is small. Finally, analyzing the incidence of ‘strategic voting’, we find jury members who vote for one leading candidate are more, rather than less, likely to also give points to his main competitor, as compared with neutral jury members. We discuss the implications of our findings for the design of awards, elections and performance evaluation systems in general, and for the FIFA Ballon d’Or award in particular.

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  • Tom Coupé & Olivier Gergaud & Abdul Noury, 2016. "Biases and Strategic Behavior in Performance Evaluation: The Case of the FIFA’s Best Soccer Player Award," Working Papers in Economics 16/24, University of Canterbury, Department of Economics and Finance.
    • Handle: RePEc:cbt:econwp:16/24
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    Cited by:

    1. Principe, Francesco & van Ours, Jan C., 2022. "Racial bias in newspaper ratings of professional football players," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    2. Dmitry Dagaev & Sofia Paklina & J. James Reade & Carl Singleton, 2024. "The Iron Curtain and Referee Bias in International Football," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 25(1), pages 126-151, January.
    3. Thrane, Christer, 2025. "Nationalistic bias in experts’ player ratings in football," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 247(C).
    4. António Osório, 2020. "Performance Evaluation: Subjectivity, Bias and Judgment Style in Sport," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 29(4), pages 655-678, August.
    5. Chowdhury, Subhasish M. & Jewell, Sarah & Singleton, Carl, 2024. "Can awareness reduce (and reverse) identity-driven bias in judgement? Evidence from international cricket," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 226(C).

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    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • Z2 - Other Special Topics - - Sports Economics

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