Visitors Out! The Absence of Away Team Supporters as a Source of Home Advantage in Football

TL;DR

This study investigates how the absence of away team supporters and crowds during COVID-19 affected home advantage in Argentinean football, revealing that crowd absence can diminish or reverse home advantage.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence on the impact of away team support absence on home advantage, especially during COVID-19 lockdowns, in Argentinean football.

Findings

Absence of away team crowds benefited top teams initially.

Lack of crowds generally reduced or reversed home advantage.

Crowd absence significantly affected all teams' performance.

Abstract

We seek to gain more insight into the effect of the crowds on the Home Advantage by analyzing the particular case of Argentinean football (also known as soccer), where for more than ten years, the visiting team fans were not allowed to attend the games. Additionally, during the COVID-19 lockdown, a significant number of games were played without both away and home team fans. The analysis of more than 20 years of matches of the Argentinean tournament indicates that the absence of the away team crowds was beneficial for the Top 5 teams during the first two years after their attendance was forbidden. An additional intriguing finding is that the lack of both crowds affects significantly all the teams, to the point of turning the home advantage into home `disadvantage' for most of the teams.