Catch me if you can: Referee-team relationships and disciplinary cautions in football

Vladimir Hlasny*, Sascha Kolaric

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The central hypothesis of this study is that relationships develop systematically between referees and teams and affect referees’ decisions. Referees’ travel distance to respective stadiums and count of matches refereed for respective teams are used to measure long-term relationships. We find some evidence that the count of referee–team interactions affects disciplinary cautions in lower divisions of the English Football League. This is less evident in higher divisions where, however, distances between referees’ hometowns and stadiums appear to play a role. The influence of distance further increases with the extent of referees’ experience with the respective teams.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)560-591
JournalJOURNAL OF SPORTS ECONOMICS
Volume18
Issue number6
Early online date9 Jun 2015
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Aug 2017

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • English football
  • soccer
  • Premier League
  • yellow cards
  • referee bias
  • home advantage
  • favoritism
  • regulatory capture

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Catch me if you can: Referee-team relationships and disciplinary cautions in football'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this