Video assistant referee's effect on football: Turkish Super League Case

  • Cem Gürler Yalova University, Yalova, Turkey.
  • Volkan Polat Yalova University, Yalova, Turkey.
Keywords: Video assistant arbiter system, Referees' decision, Soccer

Abstract

Technology is now widely used in sports. One of those technology is video assistant referee (VAR) system. After being officially used in 2018 World Cup for the first time, major leagues started using VAR from the 2018/2019 season. In this study, 94 match weeks played in the Turkey Super League since the 2017/2018 season were analyzed. The present study has two purposes. The first one is to examine the effect of VARs on football statistics. The second purpose is to determine the differences of VAR statistics between two seasons. This study has shown that while goals per game (p<0,05), yellow cards per game, red cards per game was decreased, average match time (second) per game (p<0,05), ball in play time (second) per game was increased after the use of VAR. The second major finding was that the frequency of decisions did not changed per game, and the total count of positions reviewed per game decreased significantly in the second season of VAR system.

References

-Downward, P.; Jones, M. Effects of crowd size on referee decisions: Analysis of the FA Cup. Journal of sports sciences. Vol. 25. Num. 14. 2007. p. 1541-1545.

-Erikstad, M. K.; Johansen, B. T. Referee Bias in Professional Football: Favoritism Toward Successful Teams in Potential Penalty Situations. Frontiers in Sports and Active Living. Vol. 2. 2020. p. 1-5.

-Farrell, M. A Brief History (And Defense) of VAR. 2019. Available in https://sites.duke.edu/wcwp/2019/04/01/a-brief-history-and-defense-of-var/ Access in: 25/03/2020.

-Helsen, W.; Gilis, B.; Weston, M. Errors in judging “offside†in association football: Test of the optical error versus the perceptual flash-lag hypothesis. Journal of sports sciences. Vol. 24 Num. 05. 2006. p. 521-528.

-International Football Association Board-IFAB, 2018. Historic Step for Greater Fairness in Football. Available in http://www.theifab.com/news/historic-step-for-greater-fairness-in-football/# Access in: 25/03/2020.

-Kim, T. K. T test as a parametric statistic. Korean Journal of Anesthesiology. Vol. 68. Num. 6. 2015. p. 540-546.

-Lane, A. M.; Nevill, A. M.; Ahmad, N. S.; Balmer, N. Soccer referee decisionmaking: ‘Shall I blow the whistle?. Journal of Sports Science & Medicine. Vol. 5. Num. 2. 2006. p. 243-253.

-Leveaux, R. R. Facilitating Referee's Decision Making in Sport via the Application of Technology. Communications of the IBIMA. Vol. 2010. 2010. p. 1-8

-MacMahon, C.; Helsen, W. F.; Starkes, J. L.; Weston, M. Decision-making skills and deliberate practice in elite association football referees. Journal of Sports Sciences. Vol. 25. Num. 1. 2007. p. 65- 78.

-Mascarenhas, D. R. D.; Button, C.; O'Hare, D.; Dicks, M. Physical performance and decision making in association football referees: A naturalistic study. The Open Sports Sciences Journal, Vol. 2. Num. 1. 2009. p. 1-9.

-Moore, J. Var is Killing football and turning people away from the Premier League. Available in: https://talksport.com/football/649030/var-killing-football-premier-league-offside/# Access in: 20/09/2020.

-Orhunbilge, N. Örnekleme yöntemleri ve hipotez testleri. Avciol Publishing. Ístanbul. Turkey. 2010. p. 360.

-Plessner, H.; Betsch, T. Sequential effects in important referee decisions: The case of penalties in soccer. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology. Vol. 23. Num. 3. 2001. p. 254-259.

-R Core Team. R: A Language and envionment for statistical computing. 2018. [Computer software]. Available in: https://cran.r-project.org/.

-Roelands, B.; De Pauw, K. Technological Impact on Human Performance. International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance. Vol. 14. Num. 1. 2019. p. 1-1.

-The jamovi project. jamovi. 2019. (Version 1.1) [Computer Software]. Available in: https://www.jamovi.org.

-Unkelbach, C.; Memmert, D. Crowd noise as a cue in referee decisions contributes to the home advantage. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology. Vol. 32. Num. 4. 2010. p. 483-498.

Published
2021-07-17
How to Cite
Gürler, C., & Polat, V. (2021). Video assistant referee’s effect on football: Turkish Super League Case. RBFF - Brazilian Journal of Futsal and Football, 13(52), 118-124. Retrieved from https://www.rbff.com.br/index.php/rbff/article/view/1080
Issue
Vol. 13 No. 52 (2021)
Section
Scientific Articles - Original

Copyright (c) 2021 Cem Gürler, Volkan Polat

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Authors who publish in this journal agree to the following terms:

  • Authors retain the copyright and grant the journal the right of first publication, with work simultaneously licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License BY-NC which allows the sharing of the work with acknowledgment of the authorship of the work and initial publication in this journal.
  • Authors are authorized to enter into additional contracts separately for non-exclusive distribution of the version of the work published in this journal (eg, publishing in institutional repository or book chapter), with acknowledgment of authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  • Authors are allowed and encouraged to post and distribute their work online (eg, in institutional repositories or on their personal page) at any point before or during the editorial process, as this can bring about productive change as well as increase impact and impact. citation of published work (See The Effect of Free Access).