Referee Bias or Officiating Bias refers to how other factors, not related to performance and outcomes, can influence how sports officials make decisions and judgments. For example, the color someone wears during a competition (Hagemann et al., 2008), the time and score of the match (MacMahon & Starkes, 2008), the reputation of the players, and the order in which someone performs can all have an effect. This bias is different from random errors but they are not negative or intentional. These types of biases mostly occur when there is uncertainty in making a judgment, and they happen because officials brains try to fill in missing information (MacMahon et al., 2014).
It is important to understand that these biases can be useful when dealing with complex decisions and limited information. In this context, biases refer to systematic tendencies like compensation bias, where a referee is more likely to call a penalty against one team and then the other (Schwarz, 2011). There’s also something called calibration effects, where fewer yellow cards are given earlier in a game compared to later, as the referee gets used to the game and how to judge it (Unkelbach & Memmert, 2008). In the discussions among experts, there’s a debate about whether we should try to prevent officials’ biases completely and aim for accuracy, or if we should accept these biases as a necessary part of officials’ role in managing the game.
Hagemann, N., Strauss, B., & Leißing, J. (2008). When the ref- eree sees red. Psychological Science, 19, 769 771.
MacMahon, C., Mascarenhas, D., Plessner, H., Pizzera, A., Oudejans, R., & Raab, M. (2014). Sports officials and offici- ating: Science and practice. Routledge.
MacMahon, C., & Starkes, J. L. (2008). Contextual influences on baseball ball-strike decisions in umpires, players, and controls. Journal of Sports Sciences, 26, 751 760.
Schwarz, W. (2011). Compensating tendencies in penalty kick decisions of referees in professional football: Evidence from the German Bundesliga 1963 2006. Journal of Sports Sciences, 29, 441 447.
Unkelbach, C., & Memmert, D. (2008). Game management, con- text effects, and calibration: The case of yellow cards in soccer. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 30, 95 109.