In 1983 England's fifth-tier football competition introduced a two-points-for-ahome-win and three-points-for-an-away-win reward system. This system was abolished after three seasons. The anomalous point system may have been introduced to reduce home advantage but the reasons are not fully clear...

This paper investigates whether there are country-specific characteristics in goal scoring in the final stage of important international football matches. We examine goal scoring, from 1960 onwards, in full ‘A’ international matches of eight national teams: Argentina, Brazil, England,...

We analyze 45 years of data from English professional football focusing on the determinants of home advantage. We conclude that seasonal home advantage is substantial and positively related to within-team variation in attendance. Furthermore, despite big cross-league differences in attendance,...

In the Netherlands, in the top tier of professional football some teams play their home matches on an artificial pitch while other teams play their home matches on natural grass. This paper investigates whether or not home teams who play on an artificial pitch have an additional home advantage...

We investigate stadium attendance in the highest level of Dutch professional football for the seasons 2000/01 - 2015/16 focusing on outcome uncertainty, loss aversion and team quality. We find that for individual football matches, attendance is related to reference-dependent preferences with...

This paper revisits the relationship between Covid-19-related absence of stadium attendance and match outcomes, analyzing five seasons of the top tier of professional football in the Netherlands. Empty stadiums caused home advantages to disappear completely due to home teams scoring fewer goals....

We study whether there is a racial bias in ratings of professional football players in Italian newspapers. We find that there is such a bias. Conditional on objective performance indicators black players receive a lower rating than non-black players. This is not a difference across the board but...

We analyze attendance of professional football matches in England finding that it is related to unemployment over a very long period of time. More unemployment leads to lower attendances. Distinguishing between leagues, we find that the relationship is larger for lower leagues, i.e. attendance...