scholarly journals Comparison of Home Advantage in European Football Leagues

Risks ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 87
Author(s):  
Patrice Marek ◽  
František Vávra
Keyword(s):  
Prediction Models ◽  
Random Variable ◽  
Heuristic Procedure ◽  
Fourth Level ◽  
Home Advantage ◽  
European Football ◽  
Trinomial Distribution

Home advantage in sports is important for coaches, players, fans, and commentators and has a key role in sports prediction models. This paper builds on results of recent research that—instead of points gained—used goals scored and goals conceded to describe home advantage. This offers more detailed look at this phenomenon. Presented description understands a home advantage in leagues as a random variable that can be described by a trinomial distribution. The paper uses this description to offer new ways of home advantage comparison—based on the Jeffrey divergence and the test for homogeneity—in different leagues. Next, a heuristic procedure—based on distances between probability descriptions of home advantage in leagues—is developed for identification of leagues with similar home advantage. Publicly available data are used for demonstration of presented procedures in 19 European football leagues between the 2007/2008 and 2016/2017 seasons, and for individual teams of one league in one season. Overall, the highest home advantage rate was identified in the highest Greek football league, and the lowest was identified in the fourth level English football league.

scholarly journals Home advantage during the COVID-19 pandemic: Analyses of European football leagues

2021 ◽  
pp. 102013
Author(s):  
Dane McCarrick ◽  
Merim Bilalic ◽  
Nick Neave ◽  
Sandy Wolfson
Keyword(s):  
Home Advantage ◽  
European Football

scholarly journals How does spectator presence affect football? Home advantage remains in European top-class football matches played without spectators during the COVID-19 pandemic

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. e0248590
Author(s):  
Fabian Wunderlich ◽  
Matthias Weigelt ◽  
Robert Rein ◽  
Daniel Memmert
Keyword(s):  
Driving Factor ◽  
Professional Football ◽  
Home Advantage ◽  
European Football

The present paper investigates factors contributing to the home advantage, by using the exceptional opportunity to study professional football matches played in the absence of spectators due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. More than 40,000 matches before and during the pandemic, including more than 1,000 professional matches without spectators across the main European football leagues, have been analyzed. Results support the notion of a crowd-induced referee bias as the increased sanctioning of away teams disappears in the absence of spectators with regard to fouls (p < .001), yellow cards (p < .001), and red cards (p < .05). Moreover, the match dominance of home teams decreases significantly as indicated by shots (p < .001) and shots on target (p < .01). In terms of the home advantage itself, surprisingly, only a non-significant decrease is found. While the present paper supports prior research with regard to a crowd-induced referee bias, spectators thus do not seem to be the main driving factor of the home advantage. Results from amateur football, being naturally played in absence of a crowd, provide further evidence that the home advantage is predominantly caused by factors not directly or indirectly attributable to a noteworthy number of spectators.

scholarly journals Home Advantage during the COVID-19 Pandemic in European football

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dane Jamie McCarrick ◽  
Merim Bilalic ◽  
Nicholas Neave ◽  
Sandy Wolfson
Keyword(s):  
Team Performance ◽  
Home Team ◽  
Home Advantage ◽  
European Football ◽  
Multi Level

The home advantage (HA) is a robust phenomenon in soccer whereby the home team wins more games and scores more goals than the away team. One explanation is that the home crowd spurs on home team performance and causes the referee to unconsciously favour the home team. The Covid-19 pandemic provided a unique opportunity to assess this explanation for HA, as European soccer leagues played part of the 2019/2020 season with crowds present and concluded with crowds absent. Using multi-level modelling we compared team performance and referee decisions pre-Covid (crowd present) and post-Covid (crowd absent) across 9,528 games from 15 leagues in 11 countries. HA (goals scored and points gained) was significantly reduced post pandemic, which reflected the inferior performance of the home team. In addition, referees awarded significantly fewer sanctions against the away teams, and home teams created significantly fewer attacking opportunities when they played without fans.

scholarly journals No Fans–No Pressure: Referees in Professional Football During the COVID-19 Pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Christian Leitner ◽  
Fabio Richlan
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Traditional Method ◽  
Social Pressure ◽  
Statistical Analyses ◽  
Professional Football ◽  
Psychological Perspective ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Home Advantage ◽  
European Football ◽  
Potential Impact

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, European elite football (a.k.a. soccer) leagues played the remaining season 2019/20 without or strongly limited attendance of supporters (i.e., “ghost games”). From a sport psychological perspective this situation poses a unique opportunity to investigate the crowd's influence on referee decisions and the associated effect of “home advantage.” A total of 1286 matches–played in the top leagues of Spain, England, Germany, Italy, Russia, Turkey, Austria and the Czech Republic–were analyzed for results, fouls, bookings and reasons for bookings and contrasted between respective matchdays of season 2018/19 (regular attendance) and season 2019/20 (ghost games). Following recent methodological developments in the research on the home advantage effect, four different statistical analyses–including Pollard's traditional method–were used for the assessment of the home advantage effect. There are two main findings. First, home teams were booked significantly more often with yellow cards for committing fouls in ghost games. Most importantly, this effect was independent of the course of the games. In contrast, bookings for other reasons (criticism and unfair sportsmanship) changed similarly for both home and away teams in ghost games. Second, the overall home performance and home advantage effect in the respective elite leagues–identified in the respective matches of the regular 2018/19 season–vanished in the ghost games of the 2019/20 season. We conclude that the lack of supporters in top European football during the COVID-19 pandemic led to decreased social pressure from the ranks on referees, which also had a potential impact on the home advantage. Referees assessed the play of home teams more objectively, leading to increased yellow cards awarded for fouls committed by the home teams. Since there were no significant changes in referee decisions against the away teams, we argue that our observations reflect a reduction of unconscious favoritism of referees for the home teams.

scholarly journals Home team advantage in the English Premier League

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrice Marek ◽  
František Vávra
Keyword(s):  
Bayesian Approach ◽  
Random Variable ◽  
Unknown Parameters ◽  
Interval Estimates ◽  
Home Team ◽  
Association Football ◽  
Premier League ◽  
Trinomial Distribution ◽  
English Premier League ◽  
The Bayesian Approach

The home team advantage in association football is a well known phenomenon. The aim of this paper is to offer a different view on the home team advantage. Usually, in association football, every two teams—team A and team B—play each other twice in a season. Once as a home team and once as a visiting, or away team. This gives us two results between teams A and B which are combined together to evaluate whether team A, against its opponent B, recorded a result at its home ground—in the comparison to the away ground—that is better, even, or worse. This leads to a random variable with three possible outcomes, i.e. with trinomial distribution. The combination and comparison of home and away results of the same two teams is the key to eliminate problems with different squad strengths of teams in a league. The bayesian approach is used to determine point and interval estimates of unknown parameters of the source trinomial distribution, i.e. the probability that the result at home will be better, even, or worse. Moreover, it is possible to test a hypothesis that the home team advantage for a selected team is statistically significant.

scholarly journals A method for estimating the probability distribution of the lifetime for new technical equipment based on expert judgement

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 757-769
Author(s):  
Karol Andrzejczak ◽  
Lech Bukowski
Keyword(s):  
Probability Distribution ◽  
Prediction Models ◽  
General Procedure ◽  
Random Variable ◽  
Weibull Model ◽  
Expert Elicitation ◽  
Initial Assessment ◽  
Technical Equipment ◽  
Probabilistic Prediction ◽  
Practical Applications

Managing the exploitation of technical equipment under conditions of uncertainty requires the use of probabilistic prediction models in the form of probability distributions of the lifetime of these objects. The parameters of these distributions are estimated with the use of statistical methods based on historical data about actual realizations of the lifetime of examined objects. However, when completely new solutions are introduced into service, such data are not available and the only possible method for the initial assessment of the expected lifetime of technical objects is expert methods. The aim of the study is to present a method for estimating the probability distribution of the lifetime for new technical facilities based on expert assessments of three parameters characterizing the expected lifetime of these objects. The method is based on a subjective Bayesian approach to the problem of randomness and integrated with models of classical probability theory. Due to its wide application in the field of maintenance of machinery and technical equipment, a Weibull model is proposed, and its possible practical applications are shown. A new method of expert elicitation of probabilities for any continuous random variable is developed. A general procedure for the application of this method is proposed and the individual steps of its implementation are discussed, as well as the mathematical models necessary for the estimation of the parameters of the probability distribution are presented. A practical example of the application of the developed method on specific numerical values is also presented.

scholarly journals Are Sports Betting Markets Semi-Strong Efficient? Evidence From the COVID-19 Pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pascal Flurin Meier ◽  
Raphael Flepp ◽  
Egon Franck
Keyword(s):  
Public Information ◽  
Strong Form ◽  
Sports Betting ◽  
Winning Probability ◽  
New Information ◽  
New Public ◽  
Home Advantage ◽  
Betting Markets ◽  
European Football

This paper examines whether sports betting markets are semi-strong form efficient—i.e., whether new information is rapidly and completely incorporated into betting prices. We use news on ghost games in the top European football leagues due to the COVID-19 pandemic as a clean arrival of new public information. Because spectators are absent during ghost games, the home advantage is reduced, and we test whether this information is fully reflected in betting prices. Our results show that bookmakers and betting exchanges systematically overestimated a home team’s winning probability during the first period of the ghost games, which suggests that betting markets are, at least temporally, not semi-strong form efficient. Examining different leagues, we find that our main results are driven by the German Bundesliga, which was the first league to resume operations. We exploit a betting strategy that yields a positive net payoff over more than one month.

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