Abstract
The outcomes of professional Association Football matches are difficult to predict, even when the difference in the quality of the two teams is deemed to be considerable. In contrast, at the end of a season of league matches, there is generally a consensus that the champions of that league are the best team that competed. These trends can be explained by considering a football match as a measurement system. Such systems are frequently employed in many guises by scientists and engineers, but are not generally applied to studies of sporting situations. In the present study, a football match is viewed as a system to measure the difference in the quality of play between the two competing teams. This analysis exposes the high noise to signal ratio inherent in football matches due to the low number of goals scored (the signal) and the relatively high level of noise coupled with that signal (the luck and controversy allied with each goal and near miss). The paper also clarifies and quantifies the types of changes to the sport that would be required to reduce the average degree of controversy surrounding crucial matches.
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