A qualitative analysis of perceptions of venue: Do professional soccer players and managers concur with the conceptual home advantage framework?

Abstract

While a considerable amount of archival research has been dedicated to exploring the home advantage, little is known about the beliefs which key agents hold about the phenomenon. The aim of the study was to explore the cognitions of professional soccer coaches and players to ascertain their perceived reasons for why teams perform consistently better at home than away. A purposeful sample consisting of three male professional soccer players and six male professional soccer managers participated in semi-structured interviews. Framework analysis was employed to investigate consistency with Carron, Loughead and Bray's revision of Courneya and Carron's original conceptual home advantage framework. The results indicate that key stakeholders' views are in keeping with the framework, though both players and managers place a greater emphasis on the impact of the referee. These findings offer a number of insights into implications for behaviour and suggest avenues for further research.