The Ugly Side of a Sport?

Last weekend in the German Grand Prix of Formula One (F1), Fernando Alonso won with Ferrari teammate Felipe Massa in second place.  That would have been entirely without comment other than to applaud the ability of those two drivers to finish at the top of the pack, had Massa not been given veiled orders to let Alonso past him two laps from the end of the race.

Ferrari have been fined $100,000 for this, but the result stands – meaning Alonso remains a strong candidate for the overall F1 Championship, which is a very competitive 5-way tussle this year.

Nonetheless, purists complain; it wasn’t the best driver that won the race, and Alonso has been given an “unfair” helping hand in his Championship pursuit.  Ferrari have responded predictably defiantly: It has always been this way – not that it’s right or wrong or ethical.  Is it the driver, or is it the team?  Purists would respond it is the driver and bemoan such malign intervention by teams.

Some have responded that more regulation needs to be introduced to stop this – the BBC article on Ferrari’s response lists nine previous incidences of team orders affecting outcomes since 1997 alone.  But of course that won’t work.  Teams will only find more veiled methods to get team orders out to drivers to ensure that the “right” result happens.  Massa was only informed that his teammate Alonso was the “faster” driver, not told to let him past explicitly.

Bigger fines could be introduced – $100,000 in a multi-billion dollar industry is peanuts and won’t stop any of the teams with a shout of the Championship to think twice about such corruption.  But would bigger fines just make the methods of transmitting teams orders even more cryptic and hard to spot?

Vuvuzelas: What’s the Best Response?

One by one, Premiership clubs in England are banning the vuvuzela (that really annoying instrument played incessantly at the World Cup).  But the Premier League authorities won’t simply impose a blanket ban and instead are leaving the decision up to the individual clubs.

Which begs the question: What is the best response for, say, Blackpool, recently promoted to the Premiership?  The top clubs have banned them already (Spurs are the latest), the clubs with large stadia and many fans.  Blackpool is a much smaller club with a smaller stadium and likely less noise with which to intimidate visiting teams.  Wigan might be asking similar questions – could their stadium become a less pleasant place to visit for other teams if their fans are busy blowing vuvuzelas all afternoon?

I guess this is something akin to a nice empirical example of a game – the action is (ban, don’t ban), the players are all the Premiership clubs, they don’t move simultaneously though, and the pay-off isn’t clear yet likely dependent on what the other clubs do.  Now the big clubs have imposed bans, their stadia will remain quiet, peaceful places – but the homes of strong teams.  Will the bans mean players at those clubs are less used to the drone of vuvuzelas and hence the pay-off of allowing them to blown means more points from home games this season?

Assuming bans aren’t imposed by all clubs, it certainly gives some variation upon which to carry out some analysis.  The absence of a counter-factual however (how would Blackpool have done if we repeated the season and they did/didn’t impose the ban) complicates things, but assuming a club that was in the Premiership last season allows vuvuzelas, this could be somewhat akin to a natural experiment – the players certainly didn’t sign for any particular club to avoid vuvuzelas or because they like them…

Corruption again

On Friday FIFA boldly announced it had made a number of arrests in Asia related to football betting.  However, ever on the ball (excuse the pun) when it comes to corruption, Declan Hill swiftly commented to restore a sense of contempt for FIFA and its attempts to address corruption in the worldwide game.  In what can only be seen as an encouraging move, the BBC also gave air to Declan’s comments too.

It appears it’s all a game: Some low level players in the corruption ring are arrested so that the police and FIFA get to look good and people get off their backs for a bit.  It seems like some tacit game that is played: The big players get to carry on just as before provided they let a few small players be knocked off every now and again.

The main issue is that gambling on sports events is illegal in vast parts of Asia – and hence Hill compares the current situation to the prohibition-era United States, where the mafia and organised crime got its fillip.  The organised gambling market in Asia was estimated to be worth $450bn in 2006 and one only wonders how big it is now.

And of course, these arrests will change nothing: Willing punters all over Asia will carry on betting on matches illegally.  Of course, if it was just the betting itself, that wouldn’t be too bad.  It’s the fact that matches are rigged also.  We only wait to see the extent of rigging of matches in Europe, but it certainly seems that low level matches are targetted – a Macedonian team was recently banned for 8 years by UEFA for their part in rigging matches.

Broadening the Appeal of Football…sorry, Soccer

The Sports Economist has an interesting article on broadening the appeal of football.  Apparently, PJ O’Rourke has spoken, and us football fans “need to admit” that scoreless sports ties are boring.

I hasten to add, I cannot agree with that sentiment, even if it was uttered in jest.  Admittedly, goals are nice, but even the most open and exciting of games can actually finish goalless due to the infrequency of goals in football – a factor which gives it its appeal.  We’re not talking about basketball where the points gradually add up to give an overall picture, nor rugby or American Football where many points are awarded fairly frequently.  Part of football’s enduring appeal is its uncertainty, and that is built up by this relative infrequency of scoring events.  It means poor teams like Switzerland can upset the odds and beat Spain.

I have to admit, and this may well sound somewhat anti-American, that my ultimate concern for football is not that it becomes as popular in the US as traditional sports are there.  Maybe I’m part of this quaint European bias that FIFA has, or perhaps it just reflects the feeling in Europe – which I try and distance myself from much of the time when it tends towards anti-Americanism.

My concern is that games are not as marred as the World Cup Final was by cheating.  That game could have finished 5-4 and I would probably still have felt unhappy with the match given the antics on show.  My concern is also that to a large extent, justice is done: Not just divers are punished, but play-acters too, the players that roll and writhe around until the other player gets booked, that balls landing over the line result in goals being given, that offsides make use of Hawkeye or some other technologically-aided means.  This doesn’t mean that the talking points will disappear and nor does it mean that any of the excitement need be taken away from football (nor that breaks are created for advertisers) – if that is indeed FIFA’s motive for not exploring these possibilities so far.

Finally: There’s a great advert by an American company that mocks many classic suggestions for American-ising the game that finishes with the slogan: “You do the football, we’ll do the beer”.  Football fans don’t want all games ending in a result (no added-time multi-ball), we don’t want games ending 7-6 or 9-7 or whatever.  What bothers us are wrong decisions and cheating.

End of the World Cup

The 2010 World Cup concluded last night with a really awful match, which Spain won 1-0.  There’s little doubt it was a bad advert for football – but the victors get to write history, and all news outlets seem to be running with the story that the Netherlands were the nasty aggressive team, whereas Spain were the poor little angels who managed to overcome the nasty Dutch.  Perhaps the best case is the De Jong “kung fu” challenge on Alonso.  Yes it was high, and yes it looked bad on replays and still photos.  But it was a misjudgement.  It’s been repeatedly talked about how high the balls at the World Cup bounced, yet this is conveniently ignored right now to make a case against the Dutch.  The fact is that one player thought the ball would be at the right height to kick, the other play thought it would be the right height to head.  It happens all the time.  Dr Jong misjudged, and now he’s characterised as the nastiest, dirtiest player ever to set foot on the earth.

Of course, this rendering of events overlooks the manner in which the Spanish played the game: Falling over with incredible ease when even the slightest bit of contact was made by a Dutch player (and even when none was made).  Of course, when it came to lifting the trophy and celebrating, all those players who were previously mortally wounded were suddenly restored to perfect health.

Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t want this to look like a post criticising a particular team, and in particular I don’t want this to appear like somehow I’m suggesting England is morally superior and wouldn’t engage in such tactics.  I don’t buy that for one moment.  Back in the aftermath of Germany’s 4-1 win over England and that goal, an article appeared on Project Syndicate asking why it is ok to cheat in football, why footballers are not subject to any moral scrutiny over their actions, which influence millions of kids the world over week-in, week-out.

The fact is, footballers of all stripes cheat as much as possible to win.  Suarez of Uruguay has been vilified for his last minute handball to rescue Uruguay against Ghana in the Quarter Finals, while the German goalkeeper Neuer admitted to knowing the ball had crossed the line.  It’s a small example, but last night in the Final, a Dutch free kick took a deflection off the wall, and then the Spanish goalkeeper tipped the ball wide.  That’s two Spanish players who knew the right decision was a corner to the Dutch at a dangerous period in the match, with just a few minutes left.  But neither of them piped up and made a point to the referee about this.  Now Casillas is the Spanish hero, brandishing the World Cup – does he feel any unease at his actions?  Is any criticism at all being voiced?

Yes it was a small action and a small part of the action: The Dutch corner may have been wasted.  But that’s not the point.  This kind of cheating is endemic to all teams, worldwide.  Kids playing football in the streets or at school mimic the actions of their heros, even when the action is a cheating action.  Can this be right?  More to the point, can anything reasonably be done about it?

Clearly, there are two deterrents to any actions that may be deemed undesirable: The probability of being caught carrying out the action, and the punishment.  If the probability of being caught is high, then a mild punishment can be enough for deterrence: The expected pay-off from the action is sufficiently negative.  On the other hand, if the probability of being caught is low, then a severe punishment can still act as a deterrent as the small probability multiplied by the large cost makes the expected pay-off sufficiently negative again.

Given the camera angles possible now at football matches, both Spanish players knew they would be “caught”, but they also knew that nothing much would happen: That’s life isn’t it?  You try and get whatever you can, however that may be, don’t you?

Let’s think more about another common scourge of football: Diving, or “simulation” as FIFA quaintly calls it.  Can this be detected?  Even with numerous camera angles, it can be very hard to tell exactly whether a player dived or there was contact.  However, the right angle can often be found to show that a player clearly dived.  And in that situation, a punishment can be devised that is sufficiently severe that it deters players from attempting to dive.  Why shouldn’t players caught diving be banned for six months?

FIFA is looking into bringing in technology for goalline decisions.  Maybe they should also overhaul drastically the way in which disciplinary sanctions are handed out too, in order to quell the growing dissatisfaction within the game for the kinds of unsavoury actions seen all too frequently in last night’s thoroughly disappointing World Cup Final.

A New Method of Forecasting?

Time series econometric methods, and other economic methods, have long been maligned for their inability to generate accurate forecasts.

Perhaps all along we’ve been looking in the wrong place for accurate forecasts: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/10521867.stm

Major League Eating

One of the more interesting stories I saw over the past weekend came from the Coney Island Fourth of July hot dog contest. If people do not know, this is an event held every July 4th and the objective is to eat the most hot dogs in the allotted time period. In the United States, the event is televised nationally (I believe on one of the ESPN networks) and people can place bets on the winner of the contest.

A little history on the event. Joey Chestnut, the winner of the previous three contests, captured the title by eating 54 hotdogs. Prior to Chestnut’s four titles, Takeru Kobayashi from Japan captured the previous 6 titles and finished runner-up the previous 3 years to Chestnut.

What makes this story interesting is this year Kobayashi was barred from participating in the event. The reason is he refused to sign an exclusive contract with Major League Eating, who is the world body of competitive eating. Kobayashi would like to have the opportunity to compete in non-MLE exhibitions and by signing the contract, he could not. As a result, Kobayashi could not compete and Chestnut easily cruised to victory only eating 54 hotdogs. The previous three years, Chestnut ate 68, 59, and 64 hotdogs with Kobayashi providing stiff competition. Yesterday, the second place finisher only ate 43 hotdogs.

I find two things interesting.  The first is that there is a sanctioning body for events such as competitive eating.  The second is that Kobayashi knows that with his “celebrity” status, he can make money in outside exhibitions and does not want to give away that revenue generating potential.

The Resurgence of Europe and the Germans in Particular

There was a strange response in England to Germany’s latest four-goal victory: We somehow felt better about the thumping we received from the Germans!  The usual theory about a World Cup is that the stage at which you are knocked out is the stage at which you face Brazil.  That’s not quite right any more as shown by the Dutch this time round and the French (hard to believe but true) in 2006.  It seems it’s when you face Germany that you go out now – and the youth of their team suggests that this may be the case in 2014 too (although the tournament is in Brazil then), and 2018 also possibly (though with the possibility that 2018 happens in England, my patriotic sense hopes England have a young team to compete by then!).

Moreover, again there’s the tacit recognition of the remarkable ability of German teams to do well in tournaments – how do they do it?  This time round it’s clear – they have a fantastic team.  But they’ve made the semis in six of the last eight World Cups – that takes us back 32 years to 1978.  The period 1978-1990 is a given – Germany had great teams then.  But since 1990 – perhaps since 1996 when they won the European Championships, no German side has been in any way spectacular – and from an English perspective, no better than any English side since then.  Yet Germany has still made the final in 2002 and the semis in 2006 – as well as a European Championships Final in 2008 to boot.  What is that organisational ability, that human capital at the management level, that means that a very average German team (e.g. 2002) can make it to the final?  My theory is that it’s the stage at which they faced Brazil (England met them in the quarters) – but that doesn’t explain the other successes since the mid-1990s.  Answers on a postcard.

But in 2010, have the Germans peaked a little too soon?  A tournament is seven matches, the last four in knock out stages.  It’s a fairly long haul, and it pays to conserve energy and momentum for the very latter stages.  Italy are a great example of this, only really coming good against Germany in 2006, and then in the last few minutes of extra time – before beating France in the final.  Germany on the other hand have well and truly revealed themselves on the world stage now.  No sneaking past the Argentinians – they trashed them devastatingly.  But their higher profile now means more pressure – expectations from themselves and others to repeat that level of performance.  Will that pressure yield a more nervy performance against Spain?  In 2008, the Netherlands started explosively, beating the French and Italians by three goals a piece.  But they slunk out in the last 16 to Russia, having seen their momentum run its course.