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> Conclusion > We can see that referees’ bias towards away sides has completely changed without an audience in stadiums. > Previously, away sides used to get
by mdeck_ 5y ago
> Conclusion
> We can see that referees’ bias towards away sides has completely changed without an audience in stadiums.
> Previously, away sides used to get more yellow cards in all leagues, and they also had an inferior fouls to cards ratio. However, without an audience, the disparity has disappeared, and in fact, the trend has reversed in some leagues.
Um, where is the analysis explaining why these circumstances are concluded to be evidence of differential referee treatment of (identical) behavior by the soccer players rather than identical referee treatment of differential behavior by the soccer players? This seems like an enormous premise that—correct or not—is accepted without a moment’s consideration.
- fwip 5y agoHome team referee bias is well known across many sports. If you Google it, you may find helpful studies like this one https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070403112044.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070403112044.h...
- thethirdone 5y agoFrom your link: > Boyko studied the number of goals scored by a team at home versus those scored while away, and found that teams scored 1.5 home goals on average, and 1.1 while away. Players seems like they would have much more of an effect on goals compared to referees. Players can equally be affected by crowds. It seems very hard to separate the effects so you can show referee bias. The linked page does not show anything that confirms that referees rather than players are affected.
- fwip 5y agoThe very next paragraph reads: > In addition to affecting the number of goals scored, the away team received more penalties, implying that referees are making calls in favor of the home team, possibly as a result of the influence of the crowd. Some individual referees are more susceptible to these influences than others. In fact, more experienced referees are less biased by the impact of a large audience, which suggests that they may develop a resistance to effects of the crowd.
- teachingassist 5y agoThe parent's point is that studies such as this don't fully account for the potential for players behaving better because they are at home.
- slg 5y agoI don't think that is the complaint. Referee bias is just human nature. People have a hesitancy to make a decision that will immediately cause tens of thousands of people to scream at them. That likely is the primary explanation here. Yet there is nothing done to isolate the refs outside of just averaging play among leagues and assuming that takes care of differences in play style. However players are impacted by fans just like referees. There can be a reasonable hypothesis that visiting players play less aggressively in empty stadiums which could also explain some of the observed changes. The numbers included in the article are not enough to draw conclusions on what is causing these changes.
- lupire 5y agoSports referees should relish that, knowing they are correct and empowered.
- johnchristopher 5y agoI wonder how that could be tested ?
- SteveNuts 5y agoMake the home audience cheer for home team penalties and boo for opponent penalties and measure the outcomes maybe?
- mulmen 5y agoDoes Philadelphia have a soccer team?
- nvr219 5y agoThey do! Kevin Durant is one of the owners.
- alamortsubite 5y agoI see what you did there.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jpxw 5y agoYou’d need to make the referees blind to which team’s stadium was home. My best shot: blindfold the referees, put them in cars, drive them to random stadiums (of teams they have never refereed and have never seen the inside of - so preferably in a different country)*, put noise-cancelling headphones on them and dress all fans in white shirts. * or use a different stadium but fill it with more home than away supporters? But then perhaps the home effect relies on it being the home stadium.
- dylan604 5y agoUm, any professional referee that cannot tell what stadium they are in clearly are not familiar enough with the sport to be a referee
- hashkb 5y agoThat's always the case with study vs experiment. If you didn't control for all the variables but one, you can't make a conclusion about cause. I think the honest thing to do is to include alternate hypotheses; or at least mention some possible confounding circumstances.
- the_benno 5y agoMany SE research papers include a "threats to validity" section which is more or less what you're describing
- IG_Semmelweiss 5y agoAs i mentioned elsewhere, the spanish league 19-20 followed the first VAR season. There were many adjustments to VAR heading into the Covid season. I would flag that as confounding factot
- JimTheMan 5y agoOften I feel that the commentary to science has a lot of what-if pedantry beyond that which is reasonable. I am unsure how you would address this what-if issue. It's not a variable that can be measured or controlled easily and the means of measuring that would be up for contention. Sometimes things aren't as complicated as people make them want to be.
- nightowl_games 5y agoWithout inquisitive rigor, the hypothesis offered by the study author is also merely "what if pedantry".
- pottertheotter 5y agoGood scientific papers explicitly state what you can and cannot conclude from the data. Even if it is a case of "this is the best we can do" because there's no data to address the omitted variable, that should be clear. I have a PhD in an area where (a) it's difficult to conduct experiments, and (b) it's often hard or impossible to get data for some variables. No one likes the person who critiques a paper presentation by saying, "you're not controlling for variable x" without providing a reason why it's an omitted variable and how you can proxy for it (if it's not directly available). But you also won't get far if you aren't clear about the limitations of your paper.
- ksm1717 5y agoIf it can’t be measured or controlled then conclusions which forgo it are not valid!
- imwillofficial 5y agoPunching a serious hole in the logic is hardly “ what-if pedantry”
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- lamontcg 5y agoYeah away teams not under the emotional pressure of the crowds may keep their cool better and not cross the line into getting cards. You'd need some objective way to determine if fouls deserved or didn't deserve a yellow card and be able to show that the same fouls were still being committed, but the refs were judging them differently.
- cesaref 5y agoAbsolutely. I think the players are behaving differently. My thought is that the games will appear to be more similar to training ground practices where the opposition are your own teammates, so the sorts of tackles and behaviour the players express will be different as you don't want to risk injuring your own teammates. Overall i think the quality of football played has improved without crowds although it's not the same experience without the fans.
- notahacker 5y agoBiggest problem is they don't have an explanation for the trend "reversing". If the hypothesis referee bias in front of home crowds is the main factor is correct, home and away card allocations should follow the same pattern within a small margin of error in the absence of crowds, not reversed with sometimes greater magnitude. Most obvious reason for away teams committing more fouls per booking in an empty stadium is tactical: away teams are often set up to defend more, in a well structured manner, which means the ratio of inconsequential fouls vs cynical fouls to stop the counter attack, massive misjudgements and losses of temper is likely to be higher This is compatible with the hypothesis that a 'biased' ref is less likely to let a side get away with regular inconsequential fouls when the fans are screaming at him. But it's also conceding the very large role played by tactical approaches which stats suggest have also changed since the pandemic