Catch Me If You Can : Referee-Team Relationships and Disciplinary Cautions in Football

The central hypothesis of this study is that relationships develop systematically between referees and teams, and affect referees’ decisions. Referees’ travel distance to respective stadiums and count of matches refereed for respective teams are used to measure long-term relationships. We find some evidence that the count of referee-team interactions affects disciplinary cautions in Divisions 2 and 3 of the English Football League. This is less evident in the Premier League and in Division 1 where, however, geographic distances between referees’ hometowns and stadiums appear to play a role. Referees’ perception of the distance appears to further increase with the extent of referees’ experience with the teams. The effect of the relative distance on team advantage is stronger the higher the team’s relative stake in the game