On referee bias, crowd size, and home advantage in the English soccer Premiership

Abstract In a recent paper in this journal, Boyko and colleagues (2007 Boyko, R. H., Boyko, A. R. and Boyko, M. G. 2007. Referee bias contributes to home advantage in English Premiership football. Journal of Sports Sciences, 25: 1185–1194. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) identified differences in attendance and referee bias as factors influencing home advantage at soccer matches in the English Premiership. A replication of their study using more recent data found no evidence to sustain either of their claims.