All sports officials are meant to be objective and neutral in their decision making. In theory, therefore, two officials of the same standard should make more or less the same decisions in the same situations. In practice, however, decisions are often made in the context of personal style, the match situation, previous experiences, and (mostly) subconscious biases.
Some sports actually incorporate subjectivity into their laws. In rugby, for instance, the referee is the sole judge of whether or not advantage has been gained. In cricket, the umpire has to decide whether or not short-pitched bowling is unfairly intimidating, taking into account the batsman’s ability. Nevill et al (2002) showed 47 football situations on video to a set of referees. None of them received a unanimous verdict from the refs.
Personal style is undoubtedly a major factor in many decisions. For instance, in rugby, some referees may want to establish their authority early, whilst others may wish to allow the game to flow without being seen to be overly fussy. The referee might be influenced by previous incidents in the game, or even from a previous match between the same opponents. There may also be some benefit given to a side that’s losing heavily.
Trudel, Dionne and Bernard (1999), as well as Gilbert, Trudel & Bloom (1995), in assessing ice hockey penalties, concluded that referees, compared with players and coaches, attached greater importance to the context in which the infraction had occurred. Gilbert et al revealed that both the score and the time remaining in the game influenced decisions about whether or not to award penalties.
Diane Ste-Marie of the University of Ottawa has done a lot of research, especially in gymnastics, into how judgement can be affected by previous experience. She found that if judges were shown a performance on video with an error, they were more likely to see non-existent errors in the second tape. The effect lasted even if the second tape wasn’t seen until a week after the first one, so could affect an athlete performing in several rounds, or even if they’ve been seen in a warm-up. A similar effect has been found in figure skating.
Other assumptions made by officials can be just as erroneous. Damisch et al (2006) showed experienced judges two routines on the vault. If they were told that the two athletes belonged to the same national team, the two routines received similar scores. But when they were believed to be from different teams, the scores were less similar.
There’s also been concern that some judges might be influenced by the opinions of other judges, in so-called “conformity bias”. Boen et al (2008) found that gymnastics judges’ scores were more even when they had feedback about each other’s scores. The effect continued even after feedback was no longer being provided, suggesting that once the judges felt reassured that they had given a “correct” response, they were no longer worried about standing out from the crowd.
The decisions of referees and umpires can sometimes be influenced by prior knowledge of the teams or players (Plessner & Haar 2006). It has been shown that the previous reputation of players can influence the decisions of referees in basketball (Lehman & Reifman 1987), in baseball (Rainey et al 1989). In football, Jones et al (2002) found that players with an aggressive reputation were penalised more severely than players with no such reputation.
A major benefit for a football team playing at home comes from crowd support. It seems that part of this benefit is from the effect that it has on the referee. Dawson et al (2007) found that the home side was more likely to get favourable decisions in terms of fouls and red cards. The amount of extra time allowed is higher when the home team is behind than when it is in front (Dohman 2008, Garicano et al 2005, Sutter & Kocher 2004).
Studies suggest that this home team bias is because of the influence of the home crowd (Bokyo et al 2007, Page & Page 2009), although it seems to have more of an effect of some referees than on others. With some referees, the amount of home bias is directly proportional to the size of the crowd, whereas for others the effect is constant, regardless of crowd size (Page & Page 2009). If there’s a running track around the pitch, the influence of the crowd on referees’ decisions seems to diminish (Buraimo et al 2008).
It could be that referees are simply alerted to the presence of a foul by crowd noise. Nevill et al (2002) found that referees looking at video footage (Liverpool v Leicester City) were much less likely to give advantage to the home team when the sound was turned off compared with when it was on.
Favouring teams or individuals of the same nationality as the official has been found in numerous sports, especially those that are judged subjectively. Clear national favouritism has been found in figure skating (Seltzer & Glass 1991, Whissell et al 1993, Campbell & Galbraith 1996), gymnastics (Ansorge & Scheer 1998, Ste-Marie 1996), ski jumping (Zitzewitz 2006), rhythmic gymnastics (Popovic 2000), Thai kick-boxing (Myers et al 2006) and synchronised diving (Emerson et al 2009). In all these sports, referees have been shown systematically to be giving advantage to competitors from their own countries, and the effect is significant, because the result often determined by the referee’s decision.
Even in sports where the result is not so closely tied to the decision of the referee, there has still been evidence of a national or local bias. Mohr & Larsen (1998) found that referees in Australian football were more likely to favour teams from their own states in matches against teams from another state.
At a national level, football, rugby and cricket usually have neutral officials. Page & Page (2010) looked at two cases where referees were allowed to officiate in inter-club matches where the team from their nation played a team from another nation. These were in rugby league the European Super League 2006 – 9 (mostly British teams with one French team), and in rugby union the Super 14 2009 (5 South African, 5 New Zealand and 4 Australian teams).
In Super 14, a referee with the same nationality of a team increased the score of that team by on average 5 points relative to when there was a neutral referee. The home team won 71% of its matches when the referee was of its own nationality, compared with 50% when the referee was of the nationality of the away team.
In Super League, the French team received on average 9 points more in a match when the referee was not English. They won 67% of their matches when the referee was Australian or French, compared with only 41% when the referee was English. The effect varied according to whether or not the match was televised. When the referee was English, the French team was much more successful when the match was on TV (59%) than when it wasn’t (30%).
The effect of favouritism was most pronounced when the decisions were critical. When there was an English referee, the French team received twice as many cards as the English team, but when the referee wasn’t English they received roughly the same number.
Page & Page also studied the rugby league Championship, which had one French team and mostly English referees. They looked at decisions involving whether or not the ball had been grounded in scoring a try. French teams had a lower proportion of positive decisions (79% against 93%).
Favouritism was also particularly strong when the score was close, with English and French referees favouring the side of their own nationality when it mattered most. In the Championship, when the difference between the sides was 4 points or less, the French team had only a 59% chance of getting a try validated, compared with 82% for the English team.
Because so many of the decisions made by officials are a matter of opinion, such as LBW decisions in cricket, the individual can justify to themselves that they made the correct decision according to the laws of the game, and will genuinely not be aware of their own bias. There are many factors that go into making a split-second decision, including the attitude of the players, the crowd or spectators, the personality of the official, and even their mind-set on the day.
It’s important therefore that during their training, officials are made aware of these factors, and are given as much practice (e.g. videos with crowd noise) and feedback as possible to enable them to improve their consistency. Because one thing seems clear: in many sports, officials’ decisions have a large effect on the result of the game.
David Donner
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