Research shows that umpires subconsciously favour home teams in range of sportsTom Morris
FOX SPORTS
20 April 2016FOOTBALL fans since the dawn of the game have jeered umpires, rightly or wrongly.
Screaming “BAAAALLL” or fiercely debating decisions is almost a sport in itself. It’s part of the culture and in some ways, the very essence of our game.
However, whether this crowd noise makes a tangible difference to the free-kick count is yet to be fully explored in Australian football.
But the home-field advantage phenomenon has been researched thoroughly in other codes, namely European soccer, American baseball and American football.
The results are unequivocal: Umpires, especially less experienced ones, subconsciously favour the home team.
“In my experience as a coach, the away team at an interstate ground invariably has the rough end of the stick,” one AFL coach told foxfooty.com.au.
“There is no doubt in my mind that umpires, especially the ones that aren’t as experienced, are unwittingly influenced. They aren’t cheats, it’s just the pressure the crowd puts on gets to them.”
But before we moan about bias or even mention that dirty word — cheating — it’s important to ascertain exactly how the crowd’s noise can manifest into an official paying a free to the home team, or not paying a free to the away side.
Ryan Boyko, a research assistant in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University, studied 5,000 English Premier League games between 1992 and 2006.
The data was published in the Journal of Sports Sciences and strongly suggested that for every 10,000 people at the game, the home team’s advantage increased by 0.1 goals.
It also concluded the home teams are likely to receive more penalty kicks.
Professor Thomas Dohmen took the research one step further in his study which covered 2754 German Bundesliga matches from March, 1992 to January, 2000. In it, he claimed the smaller the stadium, the greater the bias towards the home team.
Specifically, he found that in the German Bundesliga, venues that had an athletics track surrounding the playing surface had a smaller officiating bias than those without a running track.
Whether this theory applies to the small SCG as opposed to a much larger Subiaco is debatable. But at the very least, it is food for thought.
How the notion of subconscious favouritism translates to AFL is somewhat unclear, although there are stats that suggest it has merit.
From the start of 2014 to the end of Round 3 this year, local teams received on average 18 free kicks per game, while travelling sides received 16.4 per outing.
There are exceptions to this rule, but the trend is clear: If you’re playing a team from another state at home, don’t expect any favours from the umpires.
When foxfooty.com.au discussed the aforementioned theories with an experienced AFL player, he indicated the umpires are more likely to not pay free kicks to the away team, rather than pay them to the home side.
“I get the feeling that when we play interstate, we don’t necessarily get free kicks paid against us any more often than normal,” the player said.
“It’s more we don’t get holding the balls and push in the backs when we maybe should.”
Home field advantage can also come down to other factors such as better familiarity with the venue and less travel to games, but umpire bias is undoubtedly the significant factor in playing interstate.
The only way to fix this? Play in front of an empty stadium. Since that won’t be happening soon, fans may just have to accept this is part of the game.
http://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/research-shows-that-umpires-subconsciously-favour-home-teams-in-range-of-sports/news-story/43fe7f2a9d8a63cffe84b769a318206b
