From Yahoo: Wow. Anyone care to apply it to the controversial calls in this World Cup and see if it stacks up?!! *** I may regret posting this because there seems something fishy about this. Since the CR turns to face the action while following the Diagonal System of Control, he or she is nearly always viewing play in the penalty area with the defenders to his or her left and the attackers to the right. So, generally speaking, the bias (if there is one) is to the defenders. So it isn't a matter of favoring one team over another based on which way they're going, it's a matter (at least near the penalty area) of favoring defense over the attack. Depending on where the CR is positioned in the midfield, I suppose you could (according to this theory) look for bias in terms of teams going left to right vs right to left.
Isn't attacking from right to left only a construct of the television feed, and the 4th official (I guess)?
It would be a mistake to discuss this without more information. Headlines and one paragraph summaries are dangerous. Try reading this first: http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0011667
I may be in the minority on this - I seem to trail the play and view it from behind about as often as from the side, or so it seems to me. In any event an interesting read and thanks for the post.