Home advantage without crowds: same outcomes, but fewer home shots and away fouls/cards

[Cheimoon]

I came across this article today from PLoS ONE: "How does spectator presence affect football? Home advantage remains in European top-class football matches played without spectators during the COVID-19 pandemic". The full abstract is below, but in short, while home teams have fewer advantages in terms of fouls, red and yellow cards, and shots, the decrease in home points gained is non-significant - meaning that the lack of crowds changes things for referees but not for match results.

That's interesting - I'd have thought that these things would go together, but somehow not. And as they point out: this is confirmed by amateur football, which has small or no crowds and also experiences home advantage.

Full abstract:

The present paper investigates factors contributing to the home advantage, by using the exceptional opportunity to study professional football matches played in the absence of spectators due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. More than 40,000 matches before and during the pandemic, including more than 1,000 professional matches without spectators across the main European football leagues, have been analyzed. Results support the notion of a crowd-induced referee bias as the increased sanctioning of away teams disappears in the absence of spectators with regard to fouls (p < .001), yellow cards (p < .001), and red cards (p < .05). Moreover, the match dominance of home teams decreases significantly as indicated by shots (p < .001) and shots on target (p < .01). In terms of the home advantage itself, surprisingly, only a non-significant decrease is found. While the present paper supports prior research with regard to a crowd-induced referee bias, spectators thus do not seem to be the main driving factor of the home advantage. Results from amateur football, being naturally played in absence of a crowd, provide further evidence that the home advantage is predominantly caused by factors not directly or indirectly attributable to a noteworthy number of spectators.

Reference: Wunderlich F, Weigelt M, Rein R, Memmert D (2021) How does spectator presence affect football? Home advantage remains in European top-class football matches played without spectators during the COVID-19 pandemic. PLoS ONE 16(3): e0248590. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0248590

(I know we had something about this earlier during the pandemic, but I didn't want to necro an old thread)