A decade of violence and empty stadiums in Egypt: when does emotion from the terraces affect behaviour on the pitch?

Singleton, C. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8247-8830, Reade, J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8610-530X and Schreyer, D. (2023) A decade of violence and empty stadiums in Egypt: when does emotion from the terraces affect behaviour on the pitch? Empirical Economics. ISSN 1435-8921 doi: 10.1007/s00181-023-02383-0

Abstract/Summary

In less than a decade, the Egyptian Premier League has experienced three distinct changes between periods of competition in either crowded or empty stadiums. We exploit this unique sequence of natural experiments, to answer two questions neglected by the still emerging literature on the effects of crowds on behaviour and decision-making. First, does reinstating a supportive crowd after a long period of absence affect performances on the pitch? Second, is any reduced home advantage from competing in empty stadiums robust to repeating such an experiment? We find that eliminating crowds decreased or even reversed home advantage after an incident of extreme crowd violence in 2012, but there were no significant effects when crowds were reinstated in 2018 and once more excluded in 2020.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/110320
Item Type	Article
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Politics, Economics and International Relations > Economics
Uncontrolled Keywords	Attendance; COVID-19, Football, Home advantage; Natural Experiments; Referee Bias; Social Pressure
Publisher	Springer
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