Does the Threat of Suspension Curb Dangerous Behavior in Soccer? A Case Study from the Premier League

• Activity Number: 78
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Sunday, July 31, 2016 : 4:00 PM to 5:50 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistics in Sports
• Author(s): Douglas VanDerwerken* and Jacek Rothert and Brice Merlin Nguelifack
• Companies: U.S. Naval Academy and U.S. Naval Academy and U.S. Naval Academy
• Keywords: Soccer ; Football ; Penalty cards ; Logistic regression ; Poisson regression

Abstract

Using data from the 2011-2012 season of the Premier League, we study the impact of soccer suspension rules on the behavior of players and referees. We find that players one yellow card away from suspension tend to reduce their fouls by approximately 20%. We find that had the suspension rules not been in place, the most aggressive players would have committed 16% more fouls in the games leading up to the suspension cutoff dates, to say nothing of the games earlier in the season. The probability such players receive a yellow card is also reduced. It appears that this reduction is due to a change in the behavior of the player; in particular, there is no evidence that referees treat players who are close to suspension differently than players who are not.