August 2018

IZA DP No. 11722: Player Dismissal and Full Time Results in the UEFA Champions League and Europa League

Arne De Meyere, Ward Vanruymbeke, Stijn Baert

revised version published in: International Journal of Sport Finance, 2020, 15 (1), 27 - 38

This study is the first to estimate the effects of the sending-off of a player on the full time results in international club soccer. To this end, we analyse data of more than 2,000 recent games in the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League. We find that when home teams receive a red card, it harms their goal scoring and victory probabilities. By contrast, a red card for away teams can have a positive, negative, or neutral effect for them, depending on the timing of the player dismissal.