Referees punish taller players more often.

Wibble

Football referees 'more likely to penalise taller players', say researchers | Football | guardian.co.uk

Since my son is the biggest kid in his year this irritates me no end. Every year he gets penalised for fair tackles merely because of his size. Last year he was threatened with a card when a kid ran into him when he wasn't actually moving and because the little kid went flying it was a "foul". In fact if there was a foul it was in the opposite direction. Despite him taking elbows and kicks and hacks he hardly ever gets even a free kick because he doesn't go down easily.

I think that there is a case for referees at professional levels to be trained in phyc related stuff including bias based training.

Pogue Mahone

Interesting.

That would help explain why that little fucker, Mascherano, regularly gets away with murder.

Wibble

That and the fact that refs like having the word fuck shouted at them repeatedly.

x42bn6

Does that explain how Scholes's tackling is actually awesome?

Wibble

I wonder of they have studied such issues in relation to race? That could be a can of worms.

Wibble

It perhaps explains how he isn't sent off more.

Team Brian GB

As if Peter Crouch isn't victimised enough.

Pogue Mahone

Oh no you di'n't...

Good point though. Would be interesting to see the data.

kouroux

They would never dare.

Wibble

Imagine if it turned out that black players got punished the least and gingers the most.

The BNP would start a proactive ginger recruitment drive and we could smuggle Noodle into the organisation to destroy them from within by breaking their appliances at a rate that sent them bust.

Snow

I don't buy it. Centre backs and strikers are usually the tallest. Adebayor, Crouch and Jones for example are very often on the wrong end of the stick. Many a times, especially Crouch, foul by putting their hands on the defender when jumping for a header. Crouch is always amazed that he is deemed the crook but the rules are simple and clear on that part.

I'd rather think that physically stronger players are more likely not to have a judge on their side. It just happens that a lot of them are tall.

SharkyMcShark

Sounds like your lad needs to learn how to play football I kid of course

I don't think I've gotten a single freekick for in about a year of 5 a side (I'm the biggest lad on our team).

Wibble

I think they looked at more players than Crouch. There will be a correlation between height and physical strength so your argument is contradictory. Both are likely to suffer from ref bias according to this study. Certainly at the youth/amateur level of the game this is very obviously true. As obvious as dog balls.

Wibble

There were 100,000 data points which suggest that the research should be taken seriously.

Cal?

So that's the reason the likes of FV think Messi is a nicer player than Ronaldo...

Wibble

If he was giving free kicks away by fouling people I'd agree with you but he repeatedly gets penalised for perfectly legal challenges. Since he is only a few weeks past 11 and about 5 foot 5 tall and close to 60kgs kids do tend to bounce off him. Which is hilarious when you have a decent ref because his biggest fault is a lack of aggression.

Snow

I assume you are talking to me.

It's not contradictory. Crouch is always high up on the fouling list for the before named reasons. But you generally see it against teams like Arsenal. Players like Rosicky and Nasri get away with stuff because they are weak and the attacker is often able to continue whilst a strong player would succeed in fouling doing the same thing.

B19

I know it irritated me when heskey was at liverpool how he could be kicked all over the pitch and barely earn a foul.

peterstorey

Surely not as much as him missing chance after chance?

Snow

It's still like that. Heskey has to be fouled a lot to get a free kick.

Wibble

Tall payers tend to be stronger. Stronger players tend to be taller. Therefore the two data sets will correlate to a large degree. Looking at one particular monstrously tall player is also likely to be misleading and certainly nowhere near as convincing as a statistically significant result from looking at 100,000 fouls.

Wibble

That and being merely enthusiastically competent at football. If I want a United player in the family I think it may have to be the grand kids.

Ivor Ballokov

It really all depends on the ref. I used to love watching John Hartson for Wales, depending on the referee he could either look brilliant, bullying defenders with pure strength but then in other matches he would be penalised for everything. You could basically see within 10 minutes of kick off whether big John would be having a good match or not.

B19

It no longer irritates me however.

Ivor Ballokov

Actually that probably explains why his best form came in Scotland where they let more go.

Don't really see how you can train a referee against this bias though.

Snow

Difference is, like with Crouch, is that he gets the ball send to his head all the time and he doesn't know how to head the ball without fouling. Shearer was the same, Fellaini does it too. They foul more. How 'bout that.

I don't trust a news report either to report a study correctly. Can't take the word of people of whom's motives are to sell papers rather than to report correctly.

Kraftwerker

Fellaini gets fuck all his way, and most be the most persecuted player in the league.

They should do an additional study involving hair style.

B19

That's something that does confuse the issue, as I think that this is true and players like Crouch are unfairly penalised (and not given fouls) more often than smaller players.

Then again, Drogba clearly defies anything this study might suggest.

green demon

Trouble with Heskey is that he always ends on his arse even if not fouled. I remember him "winning" a penalty after 4 minutes on his Liverpool debut for a clear dive. Like with Ronaldo, it doesn't help your cause if you get a reputation for that sort of thing early on.

Dyslexic Untied

Seen this with Jostein Flo and John Carew for Norway for 15 years now.

They also get held a lot more, without getting any help from the ref.

peterstorey

*Smacks Addis in the face with a elbow*.

MikeUpNorth

Any chance that this is actually fair? The law defines 'serious foul play' as:

Given that F = ma and taller players are likely to have a greater mass, taller players will more often use 'excessive force'. Is this too nerdy?

Pogue Mahone

Yes.

Tumbling-Dice

Acceleration is the second derivative of position with respect to time: d2x / dt2, which makes it the first derivative of velocity: dv / dt. Therefore, the acceleration is the slope of the curve on the velocity-versus-time graph.

Thus:
a = dv / dt = d2x / dt2
Acceleration is a quaternion with real and vector parts:
a= (V^2/R - cDel.v)) + (dcv/dR + cDelxv + V^2/R r)

a= (V^2/R - cV/R cos(v)) + (dv/dt + cv/R sin(v) + V^2/R r)
where R=ct and dR=cdt.

Basically the greater mass would result in less acceleration due to the derivative of velocity. With respect to the derivative of time, are smaller players quicker than taller players ? I would think generally yes.

notiboiboi

oh feck off

Pogue Mahone

See what you've done now, Mike?

Richter

That happened to me when I was 13. I stood still waiting for the ball that was high in the air and a tiny player jumped straight into my chest and I ended up with a yellow card....

Eriku

Soooo many penalties Norway should've had with Carew getting manhandled, and so many free kicks against because smaller players bounce off him.

Annoys the shit out of me.

Dyslexic Untied

It's mindboggling at times. Only time I've seen the ref doing what he should was against Scotland last qualifier.

Sc40les

Was probably because he was playing against the likes of Stenhousemuirand Cowdenbeath.