Is this possible?

If there is bias, is it for or against the team in red?

 

Well, yeah, of course. In referee class, red is always attacking and blue is always defending. Naturally, red is gonna score more often.

But then, red is always the team that's offside as well (or is that the black triangle team?) so maybe it balances out.

 

I've heard refs say that they subconsciously assume that teams in all black will be more skilled than their opponents. It's another step from there to actual bias, but I imagine it can be true.

 

I think it's applicable only to teams dressed in rainbow colored uniforms with a unicorn symbol.

 

Well, around these parts, it seems that every team's primary or secondary color is black. Even in Lake Woebegone, it seems unlikely that every team is more skilled than every other team....

On the other hand, it means that I almost never wear my black jersey.

 

Study released in 2008 proved this.

https://www.psychologicalscience.org/media/releases/2008/hagemann.cfm

 

If that's true, there is a simple solution. Hire colorblind referees

 

"Proved" is way too strong. A single study with tae kwon do officials found a bias.

 

The bolded part is already covered so problem solved!

 

Anything is possible, everything is, the likelihood of soemthing happening must be significant in order to ascertain the correlation.

Without dwelling on the neuroscience aspect of decision making, which goes against/for one team (the bias), or the referee's perception/cognitive training and experience to handle excitation and arousal - clattering into the shins of the ball handler by opponent, or a tumble in the penalty area accompanied with the inevitable shouts, for instance - there are several factors that may cause bias. Try entering "referee bias in football" in your search engine, lots of information, some scientifically studied, some popular.

Also consider this, if there was no bias, one would have complete agreement in all the threads on this forum! Referees are people too, and people have opinions based on .., .., .., (fill in all that training, knowledge, poise, experience, awareness, confidence, etc etc here)