On head-to-head results as tie-breaker and consequent opportunities for collusion

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteur principal: Csató, László
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2022
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author Csató, László
author_facet Csató, László
contents The outcome of some football matches has benefited both teams at the expense of a third team because head-to-head results were used for breaking ties. Inspired by these examples, our mathematical analysis identifies all possible collusion opportunities caused by this particular ranking rule in a single round-robin tournament with four teams. According to a simulation model based on the 2024 UEFA European Football Championship, merely the tie-breaking rule increases the probability of reaching a situation vulnerable to collusion by between 11.5 and 14.8 percentage points. This risk can scarcely be mitigated by a static match schedule. Therefore, tournament organisers are strongly encouraged to choose goal difference as the primary tie-breaking rule, similar to the official policy of FIFA.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2206_03961
institution arXiv
publishDate 2022
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle On head-to-head results as tie-breaker and consequent opportunities for collusion
Csató, László
Physics and Society
Applications
62F07, 90-10, 90B90
The outcome of some football matches has benefited both teams at the expense of a third team because head-to-head results were used for breaking ties. Inspired by these examples, our mathematical analysis identifies all possible collusion opportunities caused by this particular ranking rule in a single round-robin tournament with four teams. According to a simulation model based on the 2024 UEFA European Football Championship, merely the tie-breaking rule increases the probability of reaching a situation vulnerable to collusion by between 11.5 and 14.8 percentage points. This risk can scarcely be mitigated by a static match schedule. Therefore, tournament organisers are strongly encouraged to choose goal difference as the primary tie-breaking rule, similar to the official policy of FIFA.
title On head-to-head results as tie-breaker and consequent opportunities for collusion
topic Physics and Society
Applications
62F07, 90-10, 90B90
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2206.03961