Referee Decisions Research Articles

Television match officials, referees, and home advantage: Evidence from the European Rugby Cup

The regulation of on-field competition by officials is an important aspect of the management of sport. Increasingly, sports are providing technological support for officials to aid their decision making. In this paper, the authors analyse the impact of such an innovation by exploring the impact of the introduction and subsequent extended role of the television match official on the award of sanctionable offences of players in matches played in the group stages of the European Rugby Cup (ERC) and European Rugby Champions Cup (ERCC) over 15 seasons from 2000/01 to 2015/16. Rugby Union is an important sport to reflect upon because of the central role that the referee plays in rule interpretation and game management and the level of home advantage tends to be relatively high in the sport. Indeed, 65% of all matches in the sample analysed resulted in home wins. Results suggest that crowd effects and referee experience influence referee decisions, but the effects vary depending on the type of incident being considered. The main finding and contribution of the paper is that the introduction of the television match official has influenced the incidence of sanctions issued to both teams. However, the increase in the number of yellow cards awarded to away teams implies that home bias has increased since the introduction of the television match official. This suggests that referees may have been consciously or unconsciously seeking to avoid contributing to home bias before the introduction of a further official who is remote from the effects of the crowd. Recognising that such an adjustment takes place according to the circumstances is important information for the training of officials; particularly as a television match official may not be present in all games that they will referee.

Mental Education of Football Referees: Mental Suitcase of Modern Football Referees

The aim of this study is to determine the characteristics of the referees who have an important place in the football world where great developments are experienced day by day.
 Football has grown incredibly and globalized in recent years. Many sports clubs and leagues constitute a large sector that extends far beyond the national community to international audiences. This global growth has enabled the expansion of financial resources, especially in the professional market sector. This development of football and clubs also affected the referee process. Now audiences, athletes and club managers expect the referees to show management that they are making less mistakes, making the right decisions, being fair, and preventing sports injuries from occurring. The referees are persons who are assigned to competitions by national and international federations that have the authority to administer the competition on the basis of rules. In many parts of the world, fans, athletes, coaches are often complaints about the judges’ prejudice against the teams and their inadequacies. Referee decisions are very important in terms of a team winning the championship, falling league and competing in Europe. It is increasing day by day to criticize the judges ‘behavior and decisions in the competition, especially since the clubs’ ever-growing incomes and sales of TV broadcast rights are expressed in millions of dollars. In particular, the monitoring of the game field with many cameras and evolving video technology is closely examining the actions of the referees and the players in the closest distance and the number of repetitions too intensely. Referee also is an athlete. Hakem has to be nearest to the game, run as well as the players, have the mind open, and have to make the correct definition.
 The aim of this study is to explain the mental suitcase of the referees, which is a new definition in the referee literature and which includes the mental processes of the referees before, during, and after the competition.

You'll Never Walk Alone: The Effect of Moral Support on Performance

This study presents unique empirical evidence on the importance of moral support for performance. We take advantage of an unusual change in Argentinean football legislation. In August 2013, as a matter of National security, the Argentinean government forced all teams in the first division to play their games with only home team supporters. Supporters of visiting teams were not allowed to be in stadiums during league games. We estimate the effect of this exogenous variation of supporters on team performance, and find that visiting teams are, on average, about 20% more likely to lose without the presence of their supporters. As a counterfactual experiment, we run the analysis using contemporaneous cup games, where the visiting team supporters were allowed to attend, and find no effect of the ban on those games. Moreover, the ban does not affect the decisions of referees, the lineups or the market value of the teams, suggesting that the effect on team performance is due to the loss of moral support rather than other factors. Finally, we find that moral support is more relevant, and often pivotal, when there is balance of power between the two teams, suggesting that moral support compensates the power of monetary resources. This paper provides a proof of concept of moral support as an important non-monetary resource, even in settings with high monetary incentives.

The impact of video speed on the decision-making process of sports officials

There is an increasing trend in association football (soccer) to assist referees in their decision-making with video technology. For decisions such as whether a goal has been scored or which player actually committed a foul, video technology can provide more objective information and be valuable to increase decisional accuracy. It is unclear, however, to what extent video replays can aid referee decisions in the case of foul-play situations in which the decision is typically more ambiguous. In this study, we specifically evaluated the impact of slow-motion replays on decision-making by referees. To this end, elite referees of five different countries (n = 88) evaluated 60 different foul-play situations taken from international matches, replayed in either real time or slow motion. Our results revealed that referees penalized situations more severely in slow motion compared to real time (e.g. red card with a yellow card reference decision). Our results provide initial evidence that video replay speed can have an important impact on the disciplinary decision given by the referee in case of foul play. The study also provides a real-life test-case for theories and insights regarding causality perception.

Video analysis of acute injuries and referee decisions during the 24th Men's Handball World Championship 2015 in Qatar

Although handball is a contact sport with a high risk of acute match injuries, their mechanisms have not yet been investigated. We aimed to describe the mechanisms of acute match injuries in elite male handball and evaluate referee performance in injury situations. Based on injury surveillance from the 24th Men's Handball World Championship 2015 in Qatar, injury situations and the referee decisions were identified on video footage. A total of 55 injury situations and 37 referee decisions were included for analysis. The injury situations were analyzed individually by five handball experts, followed by a consensus meeting. An expert referee panel performed individual blinded evaluation of the referee decisions, followed by an online consensus meeting. Injuries were evenly distributed among attackers (n=29) and defenders (n=26). The most frequent injury cause was contact trauma due to a tackle (n=27). At the time of injury, attackers were most frequently performing a jump shot (n=9), while defenders were completing a tackle (n=10). Defenders most commonly tackled the throwing arm (n=7) or toward the head/face region (n=6) of injured attackers, while attackers most frequently hit injured defenders with the knee during jump shots (n=5). Agreement between the referees and the expert panel was weak (kappa: 0.22, 95% CI 0.07 to 0.36), with substantially more lenient rule interpretation by the referees. Our results suggest that stricter refereeing and rule amendments should be considered to prevent acute match injuries in elite handball, especially in relation to tackling episodes when an attacker is performing a jump shot.

Decision-Making by Handball Referees: Design of an ad hoc Observation Instrument and Polar Coordinate Analysis.

Referees are essential for sports such as handball. However, there are few tools available to analyze the activity of handball referees. The aim of this study was to design an instrument for observing the behavior of referees in handball competitions and to analyze the resulting data by polar coordinate analysis. The instrument contained 6 criteria and 18 categories and can be used to monitor and describe the actions of handball referees according to their role/position on the playing court. For the data quality control analysis, we calculated Pearson's (0.99), Spearman's (0.99), and Tau Kendall's (1.00) correlation coefficients and Cohen's kappa (entre 0.72 y 0.75) and Phi (entre 0.83 y 0.87) coefficients. In the generalizability analysis, the absolute and relative generalizability coefficients were 0.99 in both cases. Polar coordinate analysis of referee decisions showed that correct calls were more common for central court and 7-meter throw calls. Likewise, calls were more likely to be incorrect (in terms of both errors of omission and commission) when taken from the goal-line position.

Inconsistency of decision-making, the Achilles heel of referees

ABSTRACTThis study assessed whether decisions made by six qualified referees were consistent when watching the live 2016 televised Champions League Final. Referees were paired off into three separate rooms. Two referees watched the game with no supporters present. Two watched the game surrounded by Real Madrid supporters, and the remaining two watched the game surrounded by Athletic Madrid supporters. Referees were asked to decide whether each decision made by the on-field referee was either correct or incorrect. Results identified two types of refereeing inconsistency. The first type was a systematic tendency of the supporting crowds (both rooms) to influence the adjudicating referees to make fewer incorrect (disagree with the on-field referee) decisions (8 and 5) than referees in the “no supporters” room (19) (χ2 = 11.22 [df = 2], P = 0.004). The second type of inconsistency was the home advantage “bias”, where the surrounding crowd influenced the adjudicating referees to favour their team, by disagreeing with the decision made by the on-field referee (χ2 = 6.0 [df = 2], P = 0.0498). One explanation for these inconsistencies is that referees adopt a coping strategy of “avoidance”, i.e., when faced with difficult decisions, referees simply avoid making unpopular decisions by waving “play on”.

The Activity Profile of Elite Low-Kick Kickboxing Competition.

To determine the performance aspects (time-motion and technical-tactical analysis) of top-level low-kick kickboxers according to gender, weight category, combat round, and match outcome. Seventy-two kickboxers (44 male, 28 female) were studied. Thirty-six bouts (male = 61, female = 41 rounds) were analyzed using a time-motion system. Time structure was classified into 3 phases: preparatory-activity time (PT), fighting time (FT), and stoppage time (ST). Referee decisions caused an overall effort:pause ratio (E:P) of ~1:1.5, with a significant difference between weight categories (light and middleweights = 1:1.5, heavyweight = 1:1). This ratio was ~1:6 when high-intensity actions-to-pause activities were considered. Significant differences were also observed between rounds (all P < .001), with 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-round E:Ps of 1:1, 1:1.5, and ~1:2, respectively. The relative times of FT and PT, total attacking actions, upper-limb actions, number of technical actions performed on the head, and the number of high-intensity actions were higher in males than females (all P = .05). Males performed more jab-cross actions and fewer low kicks than females (P < .001). Males used upper-limb (63.4%) more than lower-limb techniques (36.6%), targeting the head (56.9%) more than the body/leg (43.1%), with no significant difference from females (P > .05). E:P was similar between winners and losers. However, the numbers of technical actions performed on the head, counterattack actions, jab-cross technique, and total punches were higher in winners than losers (all P < .05). Training programs need to be adapted to the specific requirements of kickboxers' weight categories and gender to develop the technical-tactical abilities that improve athletes' chances of winning.

PERSUADED UNDER PRESSURE: EVIDENCE FROM THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE

We exploit a natural experiment within each National Football League game, finding the first evidence in professional sports that referees succumb to the pressures of satisfying team personnel in the vicinity of possible violations. Using generalized additive models for binomial outcomes, we show that these sideline‐based differences in penalty rates, which are observed on common but influential penalties including pass interference and holding, peak near the centralized location of players and coaches on the sideline. With sizable interests in referee decisions, coaches and players often try to manipulate referee behavior with verbal and nonverbal communications; such actions appear to be persuasive. (JEL ZO, H3)

Hydration: The New FIFA World Cup's Challenge for Referee Decision Making?

Various continental sporting events have exposed team sports referees to different environmental conditions. Several studies have focused on strategies to prevent athlete performance impairment induced by heat or warm (or both) conditions, but few authors have investigated the effect of heat on referees' performance. In a thermoneutral environment, referees' physical activity induced mild 2.0% dehydration, which was responsible for reductions in physical, psychomotor, and cognitive performances. Therefore, the hydration status of referees should be taken into account to reduce referees' errors and misjudgments in the heat.

Types of Deviant Behavior among Football Fans in Malaysia

Many research has been carry out about football hooliganism or deviant behaviour among football fans especially in western country. The issue has been discussed since 1980s but until now, there is still existing of misbehaviour (deviant) among football fans around the world. But in Malaysia, there are no research has been done to explain about deviant behaviour among football fans. Football fans in Malaysia also facing misbehaviour such as deviant while watching live at the stadium, the numbers of incidents of deviant behaviour among football fans increase day by day. Therefore, this research has been carrying out to have an academic explanation why the fans behave like that and what type of deviant behaviour normally occur. Numbers of 600 football fans from state of Kelantan, Perak, Selangor and Johor were chosen to be respondents. Respondents around age 18-50 years old were involved within this study. The data showed that the respondents involved with verbal and physical behaviour while watching football at the stadium. A total of 77.8% of respondents said they were talking bad about the opponent team and their fans (trying to provoke the opponent fans). Throwing the objects such as rocks, firecrackers, flares and bottles always happens at the stadium. The throwing incidents happen usually because of dissatisfaction toward referee decisions. Besides that, the respondents also involved with fighting against opponents fans (36.7 %). All the behaviours either verbal’s or physicals were not happen if these fans have a spirit of sportsmanship and learn to be a professional fans. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2016.v7n1s1p59

Quantitative Analysis of Penalty Kicks and Yellow Card Referee Decisions in Soccer

Soccer referees are required to make instant decisions during the game under non-optimal conditions such as imperfect view of the incident and substantial pressure from the crowd, the teams, and the media. Some of the decisions can be subjective, such as a yellow card decision after a foul is called, where different referees might make different decisions. Here we perform quantitative analysis of factors related to the reputation of the team such as the team’s rank, budget, and crowd attendance in home games, and correlate these factors with referee decisions such as penalty kicks and yellow cards. The calls were normalized by dividing the number of yellow cards by the number of fouls, and the number of penalty kicks by the number of shot attempts from the penalty box. Application of the analysis to the four major soccer leagues shows that certain referee decisions have significant correlation with factors such as the team’s rank, budget, and audience in home games, while for other decisions the Pearson correlation is not statistically significant. For budget, or audience in home games. On the other hand, a significant Pearson correlation has been identified between the chance of a foul call to result in a yellow card and the rank or budget of the team in the Bundesliga. The strongest correlation has been observed between the chance of a tackle to result in a foul call, and the budget and rank of the team.

Simultaneous scheduling of football games and referees using Turkish league data

AbstractAssignment decisions of referees to football (soccer) games are highly debated in sports media. Referee assignments are typically done on a weekly basis as the league progresses. However, this practice ignores important workload constraints on referees. Moreover, referees' skill levels should also be considered in determining their assignments. In this article, we first give a mixed integer linear program formulation for the problem of simultaneously generating a game schedule and assigning main referees to games by incorporating specific rules in the Turkish league. We also approach this problem using a genetic algorithm (GA) because of the computational difficulties in solving the problem. In the GA solution pool, we suggest using templates for referee assignments that follow several referee‐related workload constraints. We explain how these templates can be obtained by solving a mixed integer linear model prior to running the GA. The usage of these templates for referee assignments is conceptually similar to using a basic match schedule for game scheduling such as the one used in the Turkish Football League. We use the Turkish Football League fixtures for 2010–2013 as a case study. Experiments with the GA using real‐world data show a rather modest performance in terms of computation time and objective function value. Our numerical results indicate that the problem is extremely hard to solve.

What the ADA can learn from the NBA

L et me start by saying that I am not a huge basketball fan. At best, I halfheartedly board the play-off bandwagon each spring if the Bulls or Raptors are doing well. But the National Basketball Association (NBA) did something very interesting this past season that is newsworthy for health care providers, dentists included. Beginning in March, the NBA began reviewing and evaluating all referee decisions within the final 2 minutes of close games. According to an NBA press release, this is the “latest step in the league’s effort toward more transparency in its officiating program.” NBA Executive Vice President of Referee Operations Mike Bantom stated, “Our policy in the past was pretty much to wait until we had something that was controversial enough to really garner a lot of interest . , so we tried to come up with a system that would allow us to provide some insight into our process and set a criteria that would allow us to be more standardized and more consistent.” Now it is not quite clear to me whether a physician or a dentist is analogous to the referee, the player, the coach, the team owner, the arena owner, the general manager, or some combination of all (or none) of the above. There are also obvious differences in producing “health” compared with producing a properly officiated basketball game. For example, there are few gray areas when it comes to officiating. There are correct calls and incorrect calls. Health care is far more complex. Physicians and dentists deal with a lot of gray areas. My assessment as a nonclinician is that dentistry in particular has a less robust set of clear-cut, evidence-based treatment protocols and well-defined clinical pathways compared with other areas of medicine. But forget these issues for a second. Although interesting and important, they are not relevant to the point I want to raise, which is that the underlying trends toward increased transparency, accountability, data-driven metrics, and emphasis on quality and outcomes that drove the NBA’s decision are precisely the same forces that are radically transforming the health care system. In fact, from my perspective, this new “value agenda” in health care is one of a handful of major game changers that will fundamentally reshape the dental practice environment over the coming decades. The results of the American Dental Association’s (ADA) recent environmental scan also reinforce this point.

Decision making and performance of Malaysian rugby sevens referees

&lt;p&gt;This study aims to examine the decision making by rugby sevens referees, and its relationship with the referees’ performance. The instruments used in this study are the Rugby Referee Decision Making Test (α=.74) and the Referee Sevens Field Performance Evaluation (α=.94). It was administered to 132 rugby sevens referees (mean age 33.4 + 1.5 years; 132 males) from the Malaysian Rugby Union (MRU), which have been refereeing in 10 rugby sevens tournaments in Malaysia. Descriptive and Inferential statistics (one way ANOVA and Pearson’s Correlation) were employed to analyse the data. Decision Making ( = 24.13, SD= 5.24) and performance ( = 136.45, SD = 4.47) were identified at a moderate level. The findings indicated no significant differences [F= (3, 128) =.246, p&amp;gt;0.05] in the decision making across age level, but there were significant differences [F= (3, 128) =63.159, p&amp;lt;0.05] across experience level. Highly experienced referees scored significantly higher in all decision making constructs compared to less experienced referees. The research findings have revealed a positive and significant relationship between decision making (r= .61, p&amp;lt;.05) and referee performance. In conclusion, the decision making can help rugby sevens referees’ performance, and it is recommended that referees should increase&lt;strong&gt; &lt;/strong&gt;the use of decision making in future&lt;strong&gt; &lt;/strong&gt;training and assessment. Future research should investigate the effectiveness of decision making interventions in enhancing referees’ performance in the future.&lt;/p&gt;

Influence of players' vocalisations on soccer referees' decisions

The influence of a potentially fouled player's vocalisations on the referee's decisions was investigated. Experienced soccer referees watched video clips of real-match situations that were presented either without sound or with sound where a player's vocalisations were clearly audible and made judgements regarding fouls, direction of play and personal penalties. The results revealed that players’ vocalisations had no impact on the foul decisions of the referees. However, once a referee made a foul decision, the player's vocalisations led to an increased number of personal penalties (increase in yellow cards) for the foul-causing player. In addition to crowd noise, a player's vocalisations during a foul are used as a proximal cue in the referee's decision-making process.

Turkish Adaptation of Soccer Referee Decision Satisfaction Scale (SRDSS)

The purpose of the present study is testing the validity and reliability of Turkish adaptation of Referee Decision Scale developed by Andrew et. al. (2006). Referee decision scale was developed in order to describe the accuracy-error relations between themes of opinion, concentration, and control that affect the ideal decision-making processes of referees; and crowd factor, player reaction and environmental factors; and to measure the referees’ sense of satisfaction related to their decisions. The scale consists of 9 items and a single factor on a 5-level likert type grading. Each item is graded on a scale from (0)= Never to (4)=Always. The present research is conducted on 96 referees serving in various division levels in the province of Mugla. The scale's conformity to Turkish is tested via confirmatory factor analysis. Cronbach alpha value of the scale was calculated as 0.85. Findings of the present research revealed that; Turkish adaptation of the scale is able to describe the decision satisfaction levels of referees serving in Turkey.

Finale furioso: referee-biased injury times and their effects on home advantage in football

The role of referees has become a central issue in the investigation of home advantage. The main aim of this study was a thorough examination of the referee bias concerning injury time in football, which is currently seen as an important example for the assertion that referees contribute to home advantage. First, we use archival data from the German Bundesliga (seasons 2000/2001–2010/2011) to confirm the existence of an asymmetry in the allocation of injury time. We show this asymmetry to be a bias by ruling out hitherto remaining alternative explanations (effect = 18 s, P < 0.001, = 0.05). Second, we identify a further referee bias, stating that referees systematically accord more injury time when one team leads in the game compared to a draw (effect = 21 s, P = 0.004, = 0.06). Third, the quantitative benefit of home or away teams in goals and points due to these biases is assessed. Overall, referee decisions on injury time indeed reveal biases, but they do not contribute to the home advantage, that is, there is no significant effect on goals scored by the teams. The qualitative findings (a new bias on injury time) as well as the quantitative findings (no overall effect) shed new light on the role of referees for home advantage.

Referees' Decision Making Behavior and the Sport Home Advantage Phenomenon

The aim of this investigation was to examine the decision making behavior of soccer officials (referees) in English Premiership matches to establish whether a bias, as perceived by the media and professional players, does or does not exist. Using notational analysis, this investigation used three trained professional soccer referees to assess the decisions made by match-day officials in favor of home and away teams during the entirety of ten-matched Premiership soccer fixtures. Results revealed a non-significant trend, x2 = .843, p > .05, where the number of decisions awarded by the referees favored the home team. However, significant differences were observed in the number of contentious and incorrect / missed decisions awarded in favor of the home teams compared to away teams, χ2 = 4.17, p < .05 and χ2 = 3.86, p < .05, respectively. Conclusions from this investigation indicate that soccer referees exhibit bias in favor of home teams and suggest that referee decision making behavior may be one mechanistic explanation of the home advantage phenomenon in soccer.

The effect of Twitter on sports fans' information processing: an analysis of the controversial referee's decision in the 2012 London Olympic Games

Although Twitter is one of the fastest-growing social media platforms in the sport industry, few studies have examined how Twitter messages influence sport fans' perception levels. To examine the effects of Twitter messages and user sources, a 2 (message valences: positive or negative toward the referee's decision) × 2 (user sources: professional or non-professional) between-subjects design was employed. The results of the analyses of variance (ANOVA) revealed that Twitter messages had significant effects on sport fans' information processing. However, there were no significant user source effects on source evaluation. Professional sport journalists and non-professional writers were perceived to be equally reliable and likeable. Moreover, sport fans' cognition levels were differently shaped by types of message. Induced attitudes by the messages were transferred to the related topics.