Do big football clubs win more penalties?
More or Less
BBC
4.6 • 3.7K Ratings
🗓️ 30 March 2012
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Do Manchester United and other leading clubs like Real Madrid and Barcelona benefit from biased refereeing decisions when they play in front of their home crowd? It’s a widely-held view, but Tim Harford challenges it with a look at the penalty statistics. Plus, he meets Hans Rosling of Gapminder at the Skoll World Forum: if you want to understand the world you’re living in, and how it will be different to the world your children and grandchildren will live in, listen to this interview. This programme was first broadcast on the BBC World Service.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | There are dozens of different podcasts now available from the BBC, including news, documentaries, |
| 0:06.7 | science, business, arts and sport. The details of them all go to BBCWorldService.com slash podcasts. |
| 0:17.6 | This is more or less, the program in which the numbers always add up. We make an addition of the |
| 0:23.1 | program for BBC Radio 4, but this episode was broadcast on the World Service. |
| 0:29.1 | Hello and welcome to more or less on the BBC World Service, where your weekly guide to the |
| 0:34.0 | numbers in the news and in life, and I'm Tim Harford. This week we find out the secrets of life |
| 0:40.0 | on earth with the superstar statistician Hans Rosling. But first, our big football clubs |
| 0:46.5 | favoured by referees. That was the complaint after Fulham were recently denied a penalty against |
| 0:51.2 | Manchester United. We don't have the broadcasting rights to play the key moment, but Ruth Alexander |
| 0:57.3 | is standing by ready with an action replay. Right, I'm Donnie Murphy, okay, I've got the ball, |
| 1:02.6 | I'm running really fast, I'm about to shoot, but oh no, Michael Carrick's after me. |
| 1:07.0 | Oh, I want that ball. Penalty. No, a penalty was not awarded. Really? Hang on, are you speaking |
| 1:16.1 | Ruth? Ruth now. So the referee did not award a penalty against Manchester United and it was |
| 1:22.0 | controversial. Many fans of smaller clubs would say it's because referees are biased towards |
| 1:28.4 | big clubs playing in front of their home crowd. It's a widespread belief summed up by one of Manchester |
| 1:34.9 | City's executives, Patrick Vieira. When United played at home, they may going to get some advantage |
| 1:41.4 | that some of the team will not get, but if you're going to spend is the same, if you're going to |
| 1:45.9 | Italy is the same, and I think as a football club. Is he right? There's only one way to tell. |
| 1:50.8 | Check the statistics and the sports data specialists at Opta have gathered the data for us every |
| 1:56.8 | English Premier League game since 2006. And the answer is no. So on average, Manchester United |
| 2:05.2 | have conceded one penalty every 12 home games since 2006, while Fulham have conceded fewer |
| 2:13.1 | roughly one penalty every 14 games at home. So if you're a team playing away, it's easier to get |
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