By Tony Attwood
The notion of home advantage in football is extremely well established, and year after year, we note that there are more home wins than away wins in league games. Many explanations have been put forward, but these were largely overthrown during the pandemic when matches were played without crowds, and the number of home wins declined dramatically and away wins greatly increased. Only one explanation statistically fitted all the facts.
Indeed, the only explanation that could fit all the facts was that in non-pandemic times, referees were to some degree influenced by crowds in favour of the home teams. During the pandemic, there was no home crowd, or a very limited home crowd, and so referees felt no influence from the terraces or stands. Away wins shot up in number. But the return to the normal home bias once crowds were allowed back into matches appears to confirm the issue.
Such a finding was very unwelcome for PGMO and its referees, and they ignored the change in results during the pandemic period, although there was some attempt to argue that away wins increased with no crowds present because home players felt uncomfortable on their own ground without the crowd cheering them on. As an argument, it had no scientific or statistical basis and was quickly discounted.
The conclusion of most investigators was that this sudden change in the pattern of results was itself a result of referees being influenced by the crowd in normal times, but suddenly found that influence was gone during the COVID period, when there were no crowds present changed their perspective on the game.
Certainly, this COVID finding removed most of the previously argued reasons for there being more home wins in normal times. Arguments such as familiarity with the environment helping the home team, travel fatigue reducing the effectiveness of the away team, all arguments made without evidence. The evidence simply showed that without the crowd present, away wins increased considerably and away teams found themselves getting penalised for fouls etc less often. And the fact that once the pandemic was over and crowds returned and the bias in favour of home teams also returned, suggested the influence of the crowd on the referee is the reason for there being more home wins than away wins.
However, since the pandemic, home advantage has decreased somewhat, and the conclusion drawn by virtually every analyst is that the crowd could and did and still does influence the referees and their assistants in favour of the home team.
Since those days, some referees appear to have worked hard to remove such bias from their work, although there has been no public admission by PGMO that the problem exists or existed and therefore no formal analysis of the issue.
But we can now draw conclusions as to the difficulty or benefit teams have from playing in front of supporters. If one removed the bias caused by the crowd’s influence on the referee, one would expect the number of home and away wins for each club to be roughly equal, but of course it is not in most cases. Michael Oliver is a prime exception, along with Thomas Bramall and Craig Pawson.
But Arsenal’s referee for tomorrow’s game is unreconstructed
| Games | Home % | Away % | Draw % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Michael Oliver | 11 | 45.5 | 45.5 | 9.1 |
| Anthony Taylor | 11 | 54.5 | 27.3 | 18.2 |
| Chris Kavanagh | 11 | 63.6 | 18.2 | 18.2 |
| Peter Bankes | 10 | 70.0 | 20.0 | 10.0 |
| 5.Stuart Attwell | 9 | 55.6 | 22.2 | 22.2 |
| 6.Craig Pawson | 8 | 37.5 | 37.5 | 25.0 |
| 7. Simon Hooper | 8 | 25.0 | 62.5 | 12.5 |
| 8. Darren England | 8 | 50.0 | 25.0 | 25.0 |
| 9. Robert Jones | 8 | 62.5 | 25.0 | 12.5 |
| 10. Jarred Gillett | 8 | 25.0 | 50.0 | 25.0 |
| 11. Samuel Barrott | 8 | 50.0 | 0.0 | 50.0 |
| 12. Thomas Bramall | 7 | 28.6 | 14.3 | 57.1 |
| Tony Harrington 25/26 | 6 | 33.3 | 66.7 | 0.0 |
| Tony Harrington 23/24 | 18 | 38.9 | 44.4 | 16.7 |
Tony Harrington looks very much like one of those referees who heard that crowds can influence referees and so is determined not to let it happen to him. But he appears so determined to make this happen that he has gone over the top and in a recent season, two-thirds of his games have been won by the away team!
We can see from the figures above that last season that he was showing bias toward the away team, and what should have happened is that PGMO training officials should have gone through videos of his games, looking for strange decisions and then discussing them with him. They would also have checked the way that maches were handed out to see if he was being given a biased sample.
Of course, because PGMO is an ultra-secret society that doesn’t even have a website, let alone give press conferences, we don’t know what happened for sure, but the figures this season are even more bizarre.
Two-thirds of this refs matches have been away wins – hugely different from the league as a whole. There have been 63 away wins in the league so far this season out of 130 matches, which is getting on for 49%. Last season there were 116 away wins all season out of 380 games – or 31% of games. So what has caused a rise in away wins of almost 10% from last season to this?
No commentator or manager has suggested that teams were playing in a different way last season or that the gap in ability between the top clubs and the bottom clubs is now bigger than ever. But then again, no one else seems to have noticed the difference. And that PGMO rule about not discussing referees in the media remains in place in England. Not every other country – but certainly in England.
