HOME ADVANTAGE: COMPARISON BETWEEN PROFESSIONAL AND AMATEUR GREEK FOOTBALL LEAGUES.

ABSTRACT The aim of the present study was to examine the possible differences between professional and amateur greek football matches concerning home advantage and referees disciplinary sanctions (penalty, yellow and red card). Results revealed that referees awarded more penalty kicks and allocated less yellow and red cards to home teams compared to away teams. Moreover, significant higher home advantage appeared in top division compared with amateur divisions. The results of the present study could be attributed to the support of home crowd (size, density, intensity), tactical issues and psychological effects on players and officials. Nonetheless, results should be interpreted with caution since these factors have proved difficult to isolate and quantify and most importantly seem to interact with each other.

Keywords: referee bias, crowd effect, soccer, SuperLeague.