Misconduct and Leader Behaviour in Contests – New Evidence from European Football

Karol Kempa and Hannes Rusch
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Hannes Rusch: VU Amsterdam

MAGKS Papers on Economics from Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung)

Abstract: This paper provides an empirical investigation of severe misconducts in contests based on data from European football championships. We extend previous studies by differentiating between two types of misconducts both resulting in a yellow card, namely dissents with the referee and other misconducts. Confirming the existing literature, we find that teams with lower ability are more likely to commit sabotage, i.e. fouls, to reduce the opponent’s chances for success. Sabotage is also more likely when the outcome of the contests is still open. In addition, we find that dissents with the referee are significantly more likely in the case of an unfavourable score. We introduce a new perspective to the study of football data by distinguishing misconducts of team captains from those of other players. We find that captains engage more in sabotage during important matches and challenge referees’ decisions in direct reaction to sanctions awarded to teammates. In contrast to regular players, however, captains do not participate in the escalation of series of retaliative misconducts. Finally, our analyses indicate that all types of misconduct have a negative effect on the likelihood of success.

Keywords: Contest; Dissent; Leadership; Sabotage; Footbal (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D74 D91 M54 Z22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 25 pages
Date: 2016
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-spo
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http://www.uni-marburg.de/fb02/makro/forschung/mag ... 16/29-2016_kempa.pdf First 201629 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mar:magkse:201629

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