How will home advantage influence World Cup winning wannabes? By Professor Mark Griffiths

South Africa could benefit from the home advantage

The ‘home advantage’ is a well known phenomenon in sporting circles with home teams consistently winning over 50% of sporting contests. So how will this help South Africa and disadvantage England and the other nations at the World Cup? As you will no doubt know, only seven teams have ever won the World Cup and six of them have done so on home soil (Argentina, England, France, Germany, Italy, and Uruguay) with the other winner Brazil being runners-up when they hosted it.

The home advantage certainly seems to reap rewards for lesser teams who have hosted the World Cup. All of the other World Cup host nations have performed best when they hosted it. Just look at the evidence – Sweden (runners-up), Chile (third place), Korea (fourth), Mexico (quarter-finalist) and Japan (second round). To date, no host nation has ever been knocked out in the first round. South Africa will be hoping for the same.

Last month, the consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers reported that poorer countries tend to perform better in the World Cup when compared to richer nations (although Brazil’s five World Cup wins could be argued to skew the results somewhat). So what are the critical factors involved in the ‘home advantage’? A lot of research has been carried out in this area over the last decade.

Back in 1999, a major academic review by academics at Liverpool John Moores University and the University of Birmingham published in the journal Sports Medicine examined the home sporting advantage and reported that the most likely factors thought to be responsible for the home advantage were crowd influence, knowledge of the local playing conditions, and distance travelled by the opposing teams.

Unsurprisingly, by far the most important single factor in home advantage was crowd influence. Many studies up to that point had showed strong evidence that as crowd size got bigger, home advantage was greater. There were thought to be two main reasons for why this may occur. Firstly, the home crowd may help raise the game of their team relative to the away team. Secondly, the home crowd may influence referees and linesmen to subconsciously give decisions in favour of the home team. The subsequent scientific literature tends to support the idea that crowds can affect refereeing decisions especially as a couple of important decisions going against the away team can help home sides win. For instance, a 2007 study published in the Journal of Sports Sciences by psychologist Ryan Boyko, biologist Adam Boyko and lawyer Mark Boyko examined decisions of 50 referees in 5,244 English Premier League matches and concluded that referee bias did indeed contribute to home advantage in Premiership football matches.

A 2006 study also published in the Journal of Sports Sciences by Richard Pollard of the University of South Pacific (Fiji) examined the regional variations in home advantage in football. In Pollard’s study, reliable estimates of home advantage were calculated for the domestic leagues of 72 countries over six seasons (including all European and South American countries). Home advantage was found to be particularly prevalent among European countries with three factors accounting for the majority of a team’s success (geographical location, crowd influence, and travel). Home advantage has also been studied in direct relation to the World Cup. A 2002 paper published in the Journal of Sport Behavior by Terry Brown and his colleagues analysed home advantage of all 32 teams who appeared in the 1998 World Cup. Their findings revealed that all the teams bar one had a home advantage. The importance of the game didn’t affect the home result but teams performed worse the greater the distance a team travelled to a game, and the fewer days’ teams had between playing games.

All of this scientific evidence suggests that the biggest beneficiaries during the upcoming World Cup will be South Africa but based on other weaker teams who have hosted the World Cup the advantage is likely to be slight. Let’s just hope the England team has a lot of supporters there!

Professor Mark Griffiths, psychologist, Nottingham Trent University

To speak to Professor Griffiths, call the University Press Office directly on 0115 848 8782 or email worldcup@ntu.ac.uk

[To view Nottingham Trent University’s team of World Cup experts go to www.ntu.ac.uk/worldcup]

World Cup Widows: Can your relationship survive the World Cup? By Professor Mark Griffiths

Can the World Cup ruin your relationship?

As the World Cup kicks off, many relationships may start to feel the strain as televised football starts to dominate the lives of ordinary people up and down the country. I will be one of those who will be avidly watching and hoping – along with most of the country – that England can go all the way to the final on July 11th. Thankfully, my better half loves football almost as much as me so it’s unlikely to cause any strain on our day-to-day relationship. In fact, the only better halves I will have to worry about are the ones England are playing.

However, is that the case for everybody? Over the last 15 years I have received dozens of emails from wives and girlfriends who claim their husband or boyfriend is totally obsessed with watching football. As a psychologist, I am often asked by the media about the impact that football can have on a relationship. Can the dynamics of a relationship really be affected by such simple activity as one person wanting to watch 22 men kicking spherical leather around for 90 minutes? In short, yes. A few relationships can hit rock bottom. I remember being interviewed about one of my case studies of football fanatics, a woman who dumped her husband because of his obsession with Chelsea. The headline in my local paper said it all – ‘Football can ruin your wife’!

For most people, the World Cup is something that brings people together. We become a nation united by a common cause. We get behind our team. Monosyllabic men turn into motor mouths for a month. However, for a tiny minority of people it can become the be all and end all of their day-to-day lives and can put a huge strain on their relationship. Football can quite literally become the most important thing in their lives.

A few years ago, I did an interview with The Times newspaper about the impact of being a football supporter on marital relationships. In that article, the journalist recounted the story of an avid Arsenal fan who said that his passion for football was greater than his passion for his wife. He was asked whether he would rather go and watch Arsenal than have sex with his wife. He replied that he’d “rather go and watch Tottenham than have sex with my missus.” Given that Arsenal supporters hate Spurs more than any other team in the world, this somewhat extreme example highlights that some individuals appear to have a better relationship with their football team (or football more generally) than their nearest and dearest.

Thankfully, the World Cup is only on for one month and is every four years. In the context of a long-term emotional relationship, the long lasting effects on marriage of being a World Cup Widow are unlikely to be too severe. Relationships thrive on having mutual common interests. For couples that both love football, the next month is something that will bring them even closer. For those who don’t follow football, taking a temporary interest in your partner’s passion – even if you don’t really like it – is one way to avoid relationship conflict. But just be aware, as soon as the World Cup is over, there will be some people out there – predominantly men – already counting down the days to the start of the new football season!

Professor Mark Griffiths, psychologist, Nottingham Trent University

To speak to Professor Griffiths, call the University Press Office directly on 0115 848 8782 or email worldcup@ntu.ac.uk

[To view Nottingham Trent University’s team of World Cup experts go to www.ntu.ac.uk/worldcup]