A Look Into Referee Favoritism

In light of the recent accusations that Lyon get favored by arbitration and the brouhaha over video replays, I thought I would post the results of an in depth investigation by Nice Matin, who took a look at every single error in every single Ligue 1 match in the 2007/2008 season.

The results were shocking though not exactly what I had imagined.

Lyon’s controversial penalty against Nice.

It turns out that 157 blatant, obvious, and unarguable mistakes were committed by French referees last season. That is a lot of deserved penalties not whistled – or conversely, undeserved penalties whistled – offside goals allowed, valid goals disallowed, free kicks handed out, etc, for a league that is desperate to make the leap to join the Big 3 (then again, English and Italian refs are hardly better). Still, the fact remains that French arbitration could be a lot better. And let’s not forget that not a single French referee was invited to participate in Euro 2008.

More troubling was that of the 380 games played last season, 64 of them would have had a different outcome if it weren’t for one of those blatant mistakes. It’s pretty obvious that the end of the year standings would have been different, and it’s possible that both the European and relegation spots could have been comprised of different teams.

But the study also struck down some assumptions, such as refereeing errors even out in the end and that big teams are always favored by arbitration.

In the first case, it was discovered that errors evened out in the end for only three clubs – Lyon, Marseille, and Caen. They profited from as many positive mistakes in refereeing as negative ones. But that is not the case for the other 17 clubs in the league, who had some sort of net gain or loss due to arbitration errors.

The second assumption, that big clubs are favored the most, also turned out to be incorrect. The two French heavyweights, Lyon and Marseille, didn’t gain or lose at the end of the year. This is huge because as readers of this blog will know, there is a widespread belief that Lyon are favored by referees more than any other club.

Interestingly, the club who got the most “help” from arbitration mistakes was Nancy, who profited from twelve favorable mistakes versus six unfavorable ones. That’s huge because Nancy were a hairsbreadth from a Champions League spot last season, having fallen two points short of third placed Marseille. Nancy ended up in fourth place in a UEFA Cup spot, however.

Conversely, the club that suffered the most from referring mistakes was Monaco, one of the bigger clubs in France. With only 7 favorable mistakes, Nice Matin found that Monaco also had 17 unfair calls that went against them. This is also a big deal because Monaco did poorly last season and were almost relegated, which in turn hurt the club’s finances. One has to wonder that if it hadn’t been for those mistakes, Monaco might have snagged a European spot.

Just some food for thought for the next time the media starts crying about conspiracies in French football…

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Category: Team News and Rumors