Soccer Stadium Research Articles

A Mathematical Model to Study Defensive Metrics in Football: Individual, Collective and Game Pressures

Performance analysis, utilizing video technology and recent technological advancements in soccer stadiums, provides a wealth of data, including player trajectories and real-time game statistics, which are crucial for tactical evaluation and decision-making by coaches and players. These data allow for the definition of metrics that not only enrich the experience for soccer fans through enhanced visual displays but also empower coaching staff and managers to make informed, real-time decisions that directly impact match outcomes. Ultimately, these data serve as a pivotal tool for improving team strategy based on comprehensive post-match data analysis. In this article, we present a mathematical model to study the concept of pressure between players and, subsequently, between teams. We first explore the concept in a fixed frame of a match, determining what we call influence areas between players. We introduce the unit pressure function and analyze the total number of pressure interactions. Then, we apply these concepts to football matches, considering various factors such as players and the radius of the area of influence and examining pressure efficiency through mean unitary pressure. Lastly, a real case study is presented, showcasing visualizations like a heatmap matrix displaying individual and collective pressure, as well as the team pressure balance.

Reasons that contribute to the attendance or absence of fans (as consumers) at soccer stadiums

Reasons that contribute to the attendance or absence of fans (as consumers) at soccer stadiums

Estudo de caso do projeto e execução do sistema de drenagem do gramado de futebol do Estádio Bezerrão

In soccer stadiums, every aspect is important. Infrastructure, stands, changing rooms, artificial lighting and, without a doubt, the pitch, which is vital if matches are to run smoothly and without risk. One of the problems that reduces playability is water puddles, i.e. the waterlogging of the pitch caused by rainwater. This problem is common in Brazil due to the equatorial tropical climate, which is characterized by high temperatures and intense rainfall, the latter causing, in some situations, cancellations of matches with inconvenience to fans and spectators and even delays in championships. Another problem caused by excessive accumulated water is damage to the health of the grass, as poor drainage prevents the correct development of the root system due to the lack of oxygen in the soil, limiting the absorption of nutrients, which are important for the development of the grass, and making the grass maintenance and mowing process more difficult. Within this context, the drainage system on a soccer pitch is essential. This system is divided into surface and subsurface. Therefore, this paper presents and discusses the drainage system of the Bezerrão Stadium soccer field, located in the Administrative Region of Gama, Federal District.

The Influence of Stadium Attributes on Stadium Loyalty Development within the Context of Saudi Arabia

Although soccer has become vastly popular on a global scale as evident in the constant setup of new leagues and teams worldwide, there are critical issues that primarily regard attendance rates at live soccer matches. This is due to low attendance rates, specifically in comparison to the capacity of stadiums. Therefore, it is important to investigate factors and attributes that can potentially resolve such issues. Thus, this study investigates stadium attributes as predicting factors of stadium loyalty in Saudi Arabia. Especially in Saudi Arabia where soccer is considered as the national sport, with huge financial inflow towards soccer infrastructure, there remain the issues of low attendance rate and utilization of soccer stadiums. Thus, by theorizing constructs and related hypotheses based on the extant literature and further accessing them through SEM, we were able to prove not only the hypothesized relations, but also drew out the important implications for both the theoretical and practical domains in Saudi Arabia and countries of the Gulf region. Keywords: Stadium Loyalty, Social Interaction, Entertainment Experience, Team Involvement

Inclusive greenhouse gas budget assessment in turfs: From turf production to disposal of grass clippings

Globally, greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction is a serious concern. To evaluate whether turfs serve as a GHG sink or source, GHG budget assessments for life cycle are required. However, previous studies have only focused on the use of turfs. To bridge these gaps in literature, this study investigated GHG (CO2, N2O, and CH4) emissions from the disposal of grass clippings and soil GHG fluxes in turfs. Additionally, GHG budgets in the turf production phase were assessed. Finally, inclusive GHG budgets from turf production to disposal of grass clippings for four turf uses (soccer stadium, golf course, office, and urban park) were assessed. Grass clippings were disposed in three forms (incineration, leaving as-is, and biochar). We found that GHG emissions from incineration and leaving 1 t-fresh weight (FW) of grass clippings were 0.711 and 0.207 t-CO2e, respectively. Contrastingly, the GHG emissions from the biochar yield from 1 t-FW of grass clippings were −0.200 t-CO2e. Further, annual soil GHG fluxes in newly established Zoysia and Kentucky bluegrass turfs were calculated at 0.067 and 0.040 tCO2e･ha-1･yr-1, respectively. As the turf grass in production fields sequester large amounts of CO2, GHG budgets in turf production phase were estimated at approximately −20 t-CO2e･ha-1･yr-1. Inclusive GHG budget assessment from turf production to disposal of grass clippings showed that turfs only in the urban parks served as a GHG sink and this ability was comparable to CO2 sequestration in forests. To enhance the ability of GHG sinks and to promote changes from a GHG source to GHG sink, our study revealed the importance of reduction of GHG emissions from energy and resource uses (especially fertilizers and gasoline) for turf management.

Do we need more scientific evidence for banning racist insults from soccer stadiums?

Do we need more scientific evidence for banning racist insults from soccer stadiums?

Critical Interpretation of Spatiality in Professional Korean Football Stadiums: Relph’s Theory of Placeness

This research analyzes Korean professional soccer stadiums using Relph’s concept of placelessness to understand why Korean professional soccer has rapidly declined in popularity and become a minority fan sport. Qualitative research methods were used to conduct a narrative analysis. The interview content was analyzed, and four problems were identified. The findings show that these stadiums are (1) a uniform space that excludes local culture, (2) used as a profit-generating tool for large corporations, (3) spaces controlled by the state, and (4) maximizing economic efficiency. Therefore, they have been used as a uniform space for social, cultural, political, and economic purposes. The Korean national soccer team’s performance in international competitions seems to be satisfactory. However, the domestic professional soccer league is in a vulnerable condition. Thus, these stadiums should be established as true places by removing the element of placelessness in order to recover the popularity of Korean professional soccer.

Spectators' perceptions regarding the security measures taken in soccer stadiums

Spectators' perceptions regarding the security measures taken in soccer stadiums

Terrorist Attacks against Sports Venues: Emerging Trends and Characteristics Spanning 50 Years.

Sports venues foster community and support local economies. Due to their capacity to host hundreds to thousands of spectators, sports venues are vulnerable to becoming targets of terrorism. Types of venues targeted, regional trends, and methods of attack employed world-wide have not been well-described. A search of the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) was conducted from 1970 through the end of 2019. Pre-coded variables for target type "business" and target subtype "entertainment/cultural/stadium/casino" were used to identify attacks involving venues where sports events might be viewed by spectators as part of an audience. Sports venues were specifically identified using the search terms "sport," "stadium," "arena," and "ring," as well as mention of any specific sport. Two authors then manually reviewed each entry for specific information to confirm appropriateness for inclusion, selecting preferentially for attacks against venues where watching a sports event was the primary focus for the majority of the attendees. Descriptive statistics were performed using R (3.6.1). Seventy-four (74) terrorist attacks targeting sports venues were identified from January 1, 1970 through December 31, 2019. Thirty-three (33) attacks, or 44.6% of attacks, involved soccer stadiums or soccer venues, while 33.8% of attacks (25 attacks) involved unspecified sports venues. A bombing or explosion was the most frequent method of attack employed, comprising 87.8% of attacks. The highest number of attacks occurred in the Middle East & North Africa. In total, 213 persons died and 699 more were wounded in attacks against sports venues. Although terrorist attacks against sports venues are uncommon, they carry the risk of mass casualties, especially when explosives are used. A greater understanding of the threat posed by terrorist attacks against sports venues can aid emergency preparedness planning and future medical responses.

Sudden Cardiac Arrest in Basketball and Soccer Stadiums, the Role of Automated External Defibrillators: A Review. For the BELTRAN Study (BaskEtbaLl and soccer sTadiums: Registry on Automatic exterNal defibrillators).

Sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) during sports events has a dramatic impact on stadium-goers and the public and is often associated with poor outcomes unless treated with an automated external defibrillator (AED). Despite this, stadiums vary in AED use. This review aims to identify the risks and incidences of SCA, and the use of AEDs in soccer and basketball stadiums. A narrative review of all relevant papers was conducted. Athletes across all sports face an SCA risk of 1:50,000 athlete-years, with the greatest risk of SCA in young male athletes (1:35,000 person-years) and black male athletes (1:18,000 person-years). Africa and South America have the poorest soccer SCA outcomes at 3% and 4% survival. AED use on-site improves survival greater than defibrillation by emergency services. Many stadiums do not have AEDs implemented into medical plans and the AEDs are often unrecognisable or are obstructed. Therefore, AEDs should be used on-site, use clear signalling, have certified trained personnel, and be incorporated into stadiums' medical plans.

Factors influencing violent behavior in football stadiums in Kenitra city (Morocco)

The violent behaviors developed by football fans, traditionally known as hooliganism, are deeply rooted in history and widely spread geographically. They relate to the physical aggression and vandalism of the spectators. In Morocco, hooliganism has undergone a considerable evolution. To study the factors involved in the violence at the football stadium, questionnaires were written and filled out to the spectators of the Boutola football matches. The questionnaire includes questions about age, socio-occupational status and drug use. The results showed a relationship between age and socio-economic level and soccer stadium violence. A significant difference in the number of cases of violence (p <0.5%) between drug users and non-users was shown. According to these results, it seems necessary to Sensitize the young people on the negative effects of violence, bring together sports leaders, former athletes, representatives of supporters' groups (Ultras) and relevant government departments and integrate young people into society.

"Is a game really a reason for people to die?" Sentiment and thematic analysis of Twitter-based discourse on Indonesia soccer stampede.

This study examined discourses related to an Indonesian soccer stadium stampede on 1st October 2022 using comments posted on Twitter. We conducted a lexicon-based sentiment analysis to identify the sentiments and emotions expressed in tweets and performed structural topic modeling to identify latent themes in the discourse. The majority of tweets (87.8%) expressed negative sentiments, while 8.2% and 4.0% of tweets expressed positive and neutral sentiments, respectively. The most common emotion expressed was fear (29.3%), followed by sadness and anger. Of the 19 themes identified, "Deaths and mortality" was the most prominent (15.1%), followed by "family impact". The negative stampede discourse was related to public concerns such as "vigil" and "calls for bans and suspension," while positive discourse focused more on the impact of the stampede. Public health institutions can leverage the volume and rapidity of social media to improve disaster prevention strategies.

A Lost Cause? A Process Perspective on How Outsiders Overcome Stigmatization

While we have a great deal of scholarship on legitimacy, our understanding of how stigmatized actors seek to (re-)gain legitimacy remains quite limited. We seek to enhance our understanding of such processes through a qualitative, in-depth case study of a radical soccer fan community that, when faced an identity-threatening event, launched a crowdfunding campaign that ultimately succeeded in enhancing their legitimacy for their cause and enabling them to have a voice in a central strategic decision on the redesign of their club's soccer stadium. We leverage this case to develop a model on how stigmatized groups might be able to enhance their legitimacy in the eyes of certain audiences. We show that first, the crowdfunding campaign created a digital and temporal space allowing them to disassociate stigmatized and associate legitimate elements (i.e. artifact-based affiliation). Second, we theorize how various association tactics were drawn upon over time, facilitating an interrelated set of dynamics between what we label manual and forced association. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our study for future research on legitimation processes related to stigmatized groups.

Football Fans in the “Südkurve”: An Escape from the Pressure to Singularize?

With remarkable regularity, escalation processes in soccer stadiums lead to violence between police, private security guards, and soccer fans. This article examines the question of how this happens and what it means. In a consideration of Reckwitz’s thesis of the society of singularities, data from participant observation, interviews, and video analysis is examined in order to address the question of whether going to soccer games can be understood as a temporary break from the compulsion to individualize or singularize. In addition, the article develops the thesis that the escalation of processes of violence does not constitute the collapse of social order, but rather a predictable process in which all participants consistently cooperate (Collins). Through ordered togetherness and opposition, a common ritual (Durkheim and Turner) takes place, an always precarious walk up to the limits of what is socially acceptable, which also leads to the renewal of the social. Going to soccer stadiums, so my thesis, can be understood as testing the boundaries of the socially acceptable.

Industrial Pioneerism in the Beehive State: Rio Tinto and the Corporate Persona

Contributing to organizational rhetoric, environmental communication, and persona criticism, this paper offers the corporate persona as a heuristic for mapping the rhetorical forces of corporate rhetors in a networked era of rhetoric and subjectivity. Giving the rhetor presence where there is absence, the corporate persona is a single image of a multiple subject implied by discursive and extra-discursive networks. I show how mining giant Rio Tinto Kennecott (RTK), which owns the Bingham Canyon Copper Mine outside of Salt Lake City, uses places, spaces, and objects—including a visitor’s center, a suburban community, a soccer stadium, and a natural history museum—to create a pioneer persona that is tied to cultural memories of the Utah Deseret. RTK’s persona is illustrative of how corporations are networked subjects that can adapt their very selfhoods to meet different exigencies while evading singular responsibilities.

Implementation of the drive-through strategy for COVID-19 vaccination: an experience report.

To describe the experience of implementing a satellite vaccination unit in a drive-through system during a campaign against COVID-19. This is an experience report carried out in a drive-through vaccination satellite unit. The study development was guided by the triad structure-process-results, proposed by Donabedian. The unit was structured in a soccer stadium, allowing it to serve large audiences safely. Care flow occurred in stages and professionals were organized by sectors, with emphasis on the nursing team' work. Initially, screening was performed; later, users went to the registration sector, and, finally, they were forwarded to the application station. The unit also had emergency sectors, a cold chain, space for professionals and a Basic Health Unit as a point of support. In 25 days of operation, 9698 doses were administered, with 1.8% of doses lost. The implementation of this system required planning, structure, process development and intense team articulation, with emphasis on the fundamental and strategic role of nurses in different points of action and leadership.

Earth-shaking J. LEAGUE supporters

We conducted temporary seismic observations at the Hitachi-Kashiwa Soccer Stadium on a J. LEAGUE game day to obtain unique seismic records due to the collective action (i.e., jumping) of supporters, which were also recorded in a permanent Metropolitan Seismic Observation network (MeSO-net) station. This study investigated seismic wave excitation as well as seismic wave propagation from the stadium to its surroundings. The rhythms of the jumps of the supporters were characterized by analyzing audio data recorded in the stadium, which were compared with the characteristic frequencies observed in the seismic records. The characteristic frequencies in the seismic records are integer multiples of the jumping rhythms, which is consistent with the loading model of jumping people proposed in earlier studies. This implies that seismometers could be useful for monitoring collective human activity. Travel times were studied using deconvolved waveforms because seismic waves generated by the supporters are sinusoidal with vague onset. Polarization analysis was performed to measure the amplitude and polarization azimuths. The observed seismic wave propagation was compared with synthetic waveforms calculated using one-dimensional physical properties based on the Japan Seismic Hazard Information Station (J-SHIS). The synthetic waveforms calculated with the shallow and deep layer combined model are more consistent with observations of travel times and amplitude decay than those calculated with the only deep layer model, although a part of the observations cannot be explained by both models. This result suggests that the subsurface structure of J-SHIS is good in this region, although a more detailed three-dimensional structure and topography must be considered to fully explain the observations. As human-induced seismic signals are expected to be generated in various situations, this study shows that such unique seismic waves can be used as an artificial seismic source for validating and improving local shallow subsurface structural models in urban environments.Graphical

Sports and boycott: Attitudes among Jewish Israelis

The controversy about the campaign to boycott Israel in general and Israeli sports in particular suffers from the absence of empirical data about the political character of the Israeli sports sphere, as well as the way Jewish Israelis see a possible boycott. Supporters of the boycott hope, among other things, that the campaign is registered among Israelis, and maybe even contribute to political change. Liberal opposition relies on the argument that sports is a beacon of inter-ethnic tolerance that should be cherished rather than targeted. Through a survey with a representative sample of internet users among the adult Jewish citizens of Israel (N = 600), this study provides the following related observations: (1) there is no evidence that Jewish Israeli sports fans are more likely to question the regime of Jewish supremacy than non-fans. (2) Among Jewish Israelis there is a small, but non-negligible minority who justifies the boycott of Israeli sports, and this minority is even larger among people who attend the soccer stadium and/or are politically active. (3) A significant majority of Jewish Israelis (69%) are concerned about a possible boycott of Israel in general, but this majority is less clear among men who are sports fans. The findings question the liberal expectation that Israeli sports serve as a model for inclusive citizenship and at the same time they indicate the potential of sports to amplify existing political tendencies among fans. These observations should be considered in future debates about sanctions and boycotts.

Awareness Video Creations to Support Rookvrije Voetbalstadions in FC Twente

A "no smoking" policy as part of Rookvrije Voetbalstadions or Smoke-free Football Stadiums Campaign will be applied in all soccer stadiums below the Eredivisie and Keuken Kampioen Divisie starting the season 2020/2021. As one of those soccer stadiums, FC Twente has several problems realizing the "no smoking" policy. First is the online issue; lack of media as a source of information and knowledge. Second is the offline issues; no "no smoking" sign inside the stadium and minimum enforcer source. These problems lead to the reason for the unawareness situation of their smoking visitors. An Awareness Video has been made to help FC Twente raise their smoking visitors' awareness of the "no smoking" policy inside the stadium. The writer has done observation on the stadium, researched FC Twente's fans, and analyzed both, using Design Thinking Methodology as the framework.

Do fans’ emotions influence charitable donations? Evidence from monetary and returnable cup donations in German soccer stadiums

I study the influence of league match results of two German soccer clubs on their fans’ prosocial behavior in the stadium. For this purpose, a unique donation scheme is analyzed that collects charitable donations in the form of returnable cups with volunteers’ help (in addition to monetary donations). Using time-series analyses for matches from 2010 to 2020, the results suggest that home fans are willing to donate more to charity due to their club’s positive match results (victories). The results also indicate that reference-dependent preferences play a role in home fans’ willingness to donate. First, victories following a halftime draw lead to increased returnable cup donations. Second, the positive effects of wins are more likely to be explained by expected wins taking into account the team’s quality or the betting odds as reference points.