By Robbie Butler

I have dedicated a number of posts on this site to VAR over the past 18 months or so. I must admit, my understanding of how VAR works is getting worse rather than better with the passage of time.

From the economist's perspective the beauty of VAR, indeed football, is that it is about decision making. While the rules are codified, and have been so since 1863, interpretation of these rules is open to judgement - that of the referee. Prior to VAR many believed that the introduction of technology would move us from judgement or normative analysis towards science or positive analysis. I do not believe this has happened or if it is indeed possible with our current technology.

The biggest issue with the use of VAR for me is the scientific analysis imposed on one parameter (the attacking player's position on the field of play) and the arbitrary nature of the other parameters which are equally critical. Here are three that seem to be considered at the judgement of the officials:

1. When the ball is kicked. Offside has two points and differs from a photo finish in horse racing in this regard. It does not matter where the horses started (in national hunt racing at least) only where they finish. When the ball is kicked/first touched even, it actually has not left the foot of the player. To use a freeze frame with VAR's current technology, where the ball has moved (even slightly) is then not accurate. 
2. What part of the body the vertical defending line is drawn. When imposing this restriction, I have seen the line drawn anywhere from the shoulder to below the elbow. When the arm of the defender is outstretched this could be a foot of more in distance. 
3. Where the vertical lines touch the ground. These lines should be perpendicular to the feet. The recent Burnley Man City match illustrates an example of this not being the case. For me, this is the most glaring error of all. The left knee of a defending player had a line dropped that met the ground in the wrong place (at a 90 degree angle to the right foot and not the left foot) - an error. 

One of these problems is enough to undermine VAR. Combined, they demonstrate how inaccurate it can be and instead of improving decision making it could be making it worse. As someone said to me recently, we have moved back to 1990 when in-line with the defender was actually offside. The movement in the early 1990s to make in-line onside was very positive for the game.

Maybe in time VAR will evolve and a player will be onside if any part of their body is in-line with the defender. So we could have to go backwards to the early 1990s to go forwards.

By David Butler

Manchester United bounced back with aplomb last night after what was argued to be one of the greatest ever Premier League upsets. Their loss to Sheffield United was definitely a surprise, particularly given that this was a top versus bottom clash at the time. That said, anyone watching Sheffield United would see that they are not playing that badly (they are fourth from bottom on the attacking xG table). Both teams were arguably in somewhat of a false position at the time of the match.

How does this loss to Sheffield United compare to other famous upsets? One way of considering upset objectively is to use implied probabilities from bookmakers odds (adjusting for the bookies take). These are useful as they account for contextual factors at the time of a match.

The table below considers upsets in recent Premier League history where there is a single source of odds data. Some more famous upsets are left out (Bradford City 1 - 0 Liverpool - May 2000, Liverpool 0-1 Barnsley - November 1997). The percentage indicates the adjusted probability of the underdog winning.

United's recent loss only comes in ninth in the list. Interestingly, a home win tops the list as – market odds suggested that Norwich only had a 4% chance of winning at home to Manchester City last season. The second biggest upset was the Manchester United 2-3 loss to Blackburn in 2011. While this shares an upset probability with the next two fixtures on the list, the second criteria I have used is the draw probability (i.e. Blackburn’s chances of a draw were lower than Crystal Palace and Hull’s)

So, in the David vs. Goliath battles over the recent years, the Sheffield United recent win was definitely high on the list but probably not the greatest Premier League shock ever. For now, this belongs to the Canaries. 

By David Butler

The chart below uses the aggregate expected goals statistic to give some insights to performance and style in the English Premier League this season.

Ideally, clubs want to push themselves to the bottom right hand corner of this chart - holding a higher xG for and a lower xG against. . Unsurprisingly, Manchester City and Liverpool occupy this space. Aston Villa are a surprise package - they perform relatively well on both metrics. 

Getting out of the top left hand corner is Big Sam's task! West Brom are not creating enough chances and are conceding a bucket-load of goals. Burnley are still conceding too many and definitely not creating enough chances.

The unique style of Bielsa at Leeds stands out.  Scoring goals is not a problem. Neither is conceding them. For the casual supporter watching teams in this (rarely occupied) upper right-hand space would  probably make for the most entertaining viewing.   . 

By Robbie Butler

As announced last month, our annual sports economics workshop will return in 2021 following postponement in 2020.The annual event will return on the 21st of May 2021.

Given the current public advice and government restrictions in place in Ireland, the event this year will be held online.

So far presenters have been confirmed from Lancaster University, the University of Reading and University College Cork. We hope to confirm more speakers in the weeks ahead. A full programme will be available by early April. 

As always, this event is free to attend. Hosting details will be provided closer to the event.

By John Considine

Earlier this week the Deloitte Football Money League (DFML) was published.  Sheffield United appeared in the publication for the first time whereas Manchester United was the highest ranked Premier League club.  Last night, Sheffield United defeated Manchester United on the field.  Because of the result, Manchester United were denied the chance to go top of the Premier League.  Despite the result, Sheffield United remain bottom of the Premier League.  Despite the result, it is likely that they will be relegated from the Premier League and, therefore, their stay in the DFML will also be limited to two seasons.

In the context of Covid-19, I have previously drawn attention to the importance of relegation and promotion for the financial health of clubs (here).  The impact of the pandemic on football more generally is very well explained and illustrated in the latest DFML.  The early pages of the report are devoted to explaining to the reader the complications introduced to the revenues by the pandemic.  It is an excellent overview and well worth reading.

There is the usual range of data in the DFML.  Revenues are decomposed into Matchday, Broadcast, and Commercial.  Below is a picture that illustrates the impact of the pandemic on the larger Premier League clubs.   Not surprisingly, matchday revenues declined for all seven clubs as fans were absent from stadia for a significant proportion of the season.  Broadcast revenue declined for six of the seven clubs.  The one bright spot was commercial revenues.  Commerical revenues improved for six of the seven clubs.

Many of these changes will continue into the next DFML.

By David Butler

Over the Christmas break, I observed three less talked about incidents relating to officiating objectivity in Premier League football. These all concerned the application of the rules on the allocation of additional time at the end of the match. I find these interesting as they offer a means to consider consistency in the application of the rules, where there is lesser scope to appeal to context or referee discretion. 

The first was in Liverpool’s 7-0 win over Crystal Palace. The second was during Leed’s 5-0 win against West Brom. The third occurred in Manchester City’s 4-0 win over Crystal Palace. In all three, I was surprised at the minimal allocation of added time at 90 minutes. Only one additional minute was shown by the fourth official Stuart Attwell despite six substitutions taking place at Selhurst Park. At the Hawthorns only two minutes of added time were held up by fourth official Michael Salisbury, again despite six substitutions. When Manchester City were four up against Palace, there was only 2 minutes added on by 4th official Andy Madley. Five subs took place at the Etihad. 

The chart below shows the average added time allocated for a scale of score differences in EPL matches over this season and last. I’ve removed some outliers related to serious injuries and only considered matches where there is a five-goal margin or less between the teams. In short, when margins are tighter, on average, more additional time is allocated. 

My guess is that the correct calls are made for the close matches. We may not however be seeing enough time added in matches where the outcome looks almost certain. For my three matches above , the rule of thumb relating to substitutes were not applied. The subs alone should have resulted in greater allocations of added time. I'm sure there was plenty of added time needed owing to celebrations too!

Are there other explanations for this pattern? Maybe. Perhaps time wasting and other gamesmanship is substantially less in matches that are effectively over.
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Does it matter?  Maybe not to the result. Crystal Palace (twice!) and West Brom were probably thankful to be put out of their misery. However, these data may point toward an inconsistent application of rules. If officials are inconsistent when it comes to something that should be easily calculated, can we expect them to be consistent for the more difficult calls?  Being objective and fair is a key principle of the EPL.  What’s more, there is a significant gambling industry that exists alongside the sport – for bettors and bookies every minute can matter.

 By Robbie Butler

2021 will not just see the return of our annual workshop but also the publication of our new book Advances in Sports Economics.

Published by Agenda Publishing, this collection of chapters is a collaboration by members of the Centre for Sports Economics and Law (CSEL) at University College Cork and academics and policymakers across the world.

Advances in Sports Economics includes a wide-ranging collection of newly commissioned essays that examines the multifaceted field of sports economics in baseball, basketball, cricket, football, Gaelic games, horse racing, rugby and tennis. Both at the professional and amateur level, sport offers economists the opportunity to study the behaviour, choices and outcomes of decisions of players and referees as well as regulators and governments

The book includes contributions from those working at Lancaster University, University of Michigan, West Virginia University, University of Reading, University of Melbourne, Nedbank, Compecon, University of Liverpool, Northern Racing College, University of Castilla-La Mancha, Leeds University Business School, University of East Anglia, Loughborough University, La Trobe University and the Economic and Social Research Institute.

Advances in Sports Economics is now available to pre-order from Columbia University Press and should be available by early summer 2021. More details can be found here (USA) and here (Europe).

Our blog will now take its customary Christmas break and return on Monday the 25th of January 2021.

We would like to wish all our readers a very Happy Christmas and best wishes for 2021.

By Robbie Butler

We are pleased to announce that our annual sports economics workshop will return in 2021 following postponement in 2020.

The 6th annual event will return on the 21st of May 2021 with more details in the months ahead. The nature of the event will be dictated by government health advice and local guidelines.

​More information to follow.  

By Robbie Butler

The on-going Covid-19 pandemic has given many researchers the chance to examine the impact that no supporters has had on a variety of sports and outcomes. Some of the earliest of this work is now being published.

As the most recent post on this site noted, Economic Letters carried a piece by Marek Endrich and Tobias Gesche which examined foul play and referee biases. European Sport Management Quarterly have now published a case study on the demand for European football by James Reade and Carl Singleton.

These contributions add to a rich literature examining the effects of crowd noise (or lack-there-of) and psychological effects such as home advantage, travel, etc. on issues such as referee decision making and foul play. While the results vary there is a general acceptance that crowds matter and can influence players and referees during the course of a game. The removal of fans has led to a notable increase in the number of away wins and a less variation in the number of cautions given to home and away teams.

Enter Gaelic Games. 

Over the course of the next 14 days Ireland's two biggest sporting spectacles will take place. The All-Ireland Hurling and Football Finals will be staged at an empty Croke Park at a very untraditional time of the year (normally August/September).

The hurling final will see Limerick play Waterford, while the football final pits Dublin against Mayo. Dublin are attempting to win a record 6th football title in a row, while Limerick were hurling champions in 2018, bridging a gap back to 1973. Waterford and Mayo on the other hand are in different positions. Waterford have not won hurling's Liam McCarthy Cup since 1959. Mayo's drought goes back even longer and they have not won football's Sam Maguire Cup since 1951. 

While both Waterford and Mayo are outsiders in their respective finals, I believe the absence of spectators will be an advantage. The research in this area is yet to consider the psychological impact that repeated failure can have on "getting over the line". In the case of Waterford, this will be their 4th attempt to win a final since 1959. Mayo have lost a remarkable 9 finals since they last won in 1951. This will be their 10th attempt.

One has to wonder how much of this failure is down to the psychological aspects of the game. The build-up that week. The media attention. The expectation of friends and family. The match day. The crowd. The groans from fans as small margins start to go against the team. 

This time around both teams will face nothing both 15 others and silence. It might be enough for one or even both to prevail. Time will tell. 

By John Considine

A few weeks ago, an article in Economics Letters was titled "Home-bias in referee decisions".  Last week a section in an RTE report by Eoin Ryan included a section "Who fouls wins".  The former places the focus on the referee and suggests errors.  The latter places the emphasis on the players and suggests strategic behaviour.

As the name might suggest, and Mark Twain might advise, Economic Letters presents research is a shorter form than many journals in economics.  A recent edition included a three-page paper on the impact of Covid-19 crowd restrictions on foul play in German football.  The authors are Marek Endrich and Tobias Gesche.  Both are associated with institutions of Law & Economics.  Using 165 games played without crowds and almost three times as many games played before the crowd restrictions, the authors find that the gap between foul play by the home and away teams reduces.  I'm using the term "foul play" whereas the title of the paper is "Home-bias in referee decisions".  I want anyone who reads this blog post to realise that any difference in foul play might not be due to a bias introduced by the referee.  It is possible that the impact of the crowd is purely via player behaviour.

The introduction of technology to determine whether or not a player is offside provokes some debate but none of it is of the "machine-biased" variety.  We don't believe machines have emotions that might result in biased decisions.  Are there more machine-determined offside decisions against the away team?  If so then maybe it might prompt us to wonder if we overestimate, or overattribute, any bias in the decisions of referees.

Maybe economists are more likely to blame the referee.  Or maybe it is just those of us with a background in public choice (or government failure).  I'm also guilty of looking for such bias in the decisions of referees.  My hunch is that referees tend to favour the team that is behind.  A sort of human instrument in ensuring game-day competitive balance.  In a previous post, I explained how I checked the data from twelve games in the 2017 senior hurling championship and found that the team that was behind got 54% of the calls.  Possible referee bias?

Now consider the RTE piece that is based on data from the excellent SixTwoFourTwo website.  Here the referee is missing from the analysis.  It is the players that commit the fouls.  The suggestion is that it benefits their team.  The perspective is different to mine but the findings are consistent.  In both cases the data suggests that the winning/leading team commit more fouls or are penalised more often.  What differs is the whether one attributes the finding to the decisions of the referees or the players.  Like Endrich and Gesche, I looked to the referee.  Let me leave it at that rather than move into speculation as to why that is the case.