arbiter
JournalsPricingAccount

The Favourite’s Advantage: Evidence of Referee Bias in European Football

Alperen Kocsoy

International Journal of Sport Finance2026https://doi.org/10.1177/15586235251403231article
AJG 1ABDC C
Weight
0.50

What the paper says

This study examines how favoritism influences professional decision-making in high-pressure environments where impartiality is crucial. Using professional football as a laboratory, we leverage novel data that precisely measure discretionary decisions made by highly trained officials. Analyzing over 7,000 decisions across five major European football leagues, we find systematic bias favoring stronger teams that increase with quality disparity and is most pronounced when decisions are highly consequential. These findings contribute to our understanding of favoritism in professional judgment, particularly where discretionary power coincides with quality differences between participants.

Open paper page →

Cite this paper

https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/15586235251403231

Or copy a formatted citation

@article{alperen2026,
  title        = {{The Favourite’s Advantage: Evidence of Referee Bias in European Football}},
  author       = {Alperen Kocsoy},
  journal      = {International Journal of Sport Finance},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/15586235251403231},
}

Paste directly into BibTeX, Zotero, or your reference manager.

Flag this paper

The Favourite’s Advantage: Evidence of Referee Bias in European Football

Flags are reviewed by the Arbiter methodology team within 5 business days.

Evidence weight

0.50

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20
M · momentum0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.