A Form of Unequal Playing Field? Referees and Bias in Officiating

Abstract

Home advantage and officiating biased in sports with subjective decisions are well documented. Subjective decisions have been found to differ between individual referees as each referee responds to crowd size differently. The current study tested if subjective decisions favour certain clubs in the Ghana Premier League (GPL). Using data collected from Eurosport and Goal.com, the total number of subjective decisions (penalties in favour and sending offs against opponents) for 16 clubs in the (GPL) for the 2017/2018 and 2018/2019 seasons were examined. The results showed that some clubs have as high as 5.5 while others have as low as 1.0 means of the total 40.5 subjective decisions. The home advantage in the league was identified by comparing the percentage of total home wins and total away wins for the clubs in the 2013-2019 seasons. A paired sample T-test was conducted to find the difference between home wins vs away wins in the GPL. The result was significant with (M=88.33; SD=36.90; t=5. 86: p<0.002) supporting the existence of home advantage in the GPL. The total subjective decisions were (68% of penalties scored by home teams and 74% sent offs for away teams). The current study is further hypothesising that although officiating bias in football exists for home teams, some clubs can have more subjective decisions irrespective of whether they are playing at home or away. The Ghana Football Association (GFA) should provide enough data on match days such as game-day attendance on all matches played for future researches to determine the mediating factors that influence subjective decisions in the GPL.