At least there’s no home bias in the World Cup

ONE of the best aspects of World Cups is that, the host nation apart, there is no home side.

The reason behind that observation is the significant preponderance of home wins at international level, with about two-thirds of matches going to the side playing on their own turf.

Over the last three weeks the pattern has been reflected in England’s win against Wales at Twickenham, followed by defeat in Cardiff, France’s win over Scotland followed by defeat at Murrayfield, while Australia won emphatically against New Zealand in Perth before being hammered 36-0 in Auckland.

The importance of winning at home in front of your own fans, as well as your family and friends, is unquestionably a great motivating force – but, even so, when two well-prepared, wellmatched professional teams play each other the result should be anything but a win in the bank for the home side.

Uncertainty of outcome between well-matched contestants is an essential element in any sport remaining a vibrant spectacle for its supporters, but too often there is a sense that this is undermined by international match officials inadvertently giving the home side greater leeway than the away side.

This is not always reflected in penalty counts, which frequently finish with no great disparity between the home and away sides.

However, on closer examination, what often happens is that the home side will harvest significantly more penalties in the first hour, and then, when they have established a lead, referees will start to ‘equalise’ by awarding penalties to the away side towards the end of the match.

The lack of subliminal home pressure on World Cup referees will hopefully eradicate the very human tendency by referees to scrutinise away sides more than they do teams playing at home.