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A Violent Response to Changing the Rules of the Game: The Case of “The Split” in Scottish Premier League Soccer

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Abstract

The Scottish Premier League features the “split,” in which the league separates into two divisions after 33 games. This paper tests whether club behavior related to aggressive play is affected by the split. Our results indicate that there is no difference in the way bottom and top teams use normal fouls during post-split games. However, teams in the top division experience more yellow-card fouls after the split than teams in the bottom division. Thus, the split appears to influence the behavior of teams in the top and bottom divisions differentially with respect to more serious misconduct and aggression.

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Notes

  1. Several leagues from smaller European countries currently employ unbalanced scheduling similar to the SPL split (Welsh Premier League, Northern Irish Premiership, Belgian Jupiler League, Georgian Umaglesi Liga, Azerbaijan Premier League, Maltan Premier League, Cypriot Championship First Division, Israeli Premier League, and the Andorran First Division). To the authors’ knowledge, there is only one academic article that analyses the SPL split [Lenten 2008].

  2. The split is perceived as unfair for some teams. The first 33 games decide whether teams are in the bottom or top division after the split; however, the odd number of games results in half the teams with more home than away games at the point of the split. Also, the split has resulted in some teams playing more home games that away games or vice versa at the conclusion of the season, even though an even number of games is played. Further, teams in the bottom six can end the season with more points than teams in the top division, an important economic issue since end-of-season rank dictates how much revenue clubs receive.

  3. In February 2012, Rangers entered bankruptcy over unpaid debts to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and received an automatic 10-point deduction as a result. The ensuing financial problems resulted in the liquidation of Rangers that ended in the club being voted out of the SPL. Ultimately, Rangers received entrance into the SFL Third Division for the 2012/2013 season and the second-placed team from the SFL First Division, Dundee Football Club, filled the SPL space vacated by Rangers [Marjoribanks 2012]. The absence of Old Firm matches in the SPL may necessitate a new league schedule in the future to accommodate the drawing power of one club, Celtic, instead of two clubs.

  4. UCL and UEL payouts gathered from the UEFA website [www.uefa.com]. 2011/2012 SPL loss and turnover reported by the accounting firm Price Waterhouse Cooper [www.pwc.com].

  5. Our study differs from that of Corral et al. [2010] in that we analyze within-season changes in aggression rather than between-season changes. An alternative test of the implementation of the SPL split on aggression would be to compare late-season games in seasons prior to the 2000/2001 season to those in seasons after 2000/2001. However, this alternate test is not feasible given the lack of data available data on SPL cards and fouls for seasons before 2000/2001.

  6. Data were collected from multiple online databases to ensure correctness [ESPNsoccernet.com; football-data.co.uk; scot-prem.co.uk; soccerbase.com]. In cases where information was inconsistent across data bases, the authors consulted match-day accounts in various UK newspapers to identify the correct data. To correct for heteroskedasticity associated with repeated observations on a single match and on repeated observations of matches between the same teams, the estimated standard errors reported in Tables 2 and 3 are adjusted for clustering on each of 121 team-opponent pairs.

  7. There are seven referees who worked two or fewer games in the post-split sample, covering nine total games. These referees are assigned the same fixed effect.

  8. Each estimation reported in this section includes a complete set of team, opponent, year, and referee dummies, which are not reported for brevity. In all cases, each set of fixed-effect dummies is statistically significant at better than a 10 percent level. The coefficients for these fixed effects and tests of joint significance are available upon request. The treatment equations from the ML estimations are listed in the Appendix.

  9. As pointed out by an anonymous referee, the influence of changing referee behavior in end-of-season matches may lead to greater or fewer fouls/cards, since referees may either call the game more strictly or less strictly given the game’s heightened importance. Anecdotal evidence suggests that referees in the National Hockey League “swallow their whistles” in the playoffs [Campbell 2013], and recent research on the National Basketball Association concludes that referee behavior changes within a playoff series to favor the team that is currently losing the series [Price et al. 2012].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, University of Washington, 305 Savery Hall, Box 353330, Seattle, 98195, WA, USA

    Ryan Dansby

  2. Department of Economics, University of North Texas, 1155 Union Circle #311457, Denton, 76203, TX, USA

    R Todd Jewell

Authors
  1. Ryan Dansby
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  2. R Todd Jewell
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Appendix

Appendix

Table A1

Table A1 Treatment equations for ML estimation
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Dansby, R., Jewell, R. A Violent Response to Changing the Rules of the Game: The Case of “The Split” in Scottish Premier League Soccer. Eastern Econ J 40, 473–487 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1057/eej.2014.27

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