Home advantage for tournament victory: empirical evidence from FIFA World Cups and continental championships

Abstract This study provides empirical support for a meaningful variation in home advantage (HA) for winning a cup tournament (tournament victory) by home team (HT)’s strength, arguably through compound probability. The data is on football matches between national teams at FIFA World Cups and continental championships, and on teams’ Elo rating which measures their strength. The empirical findings show that for an average cup tournament hosted by a single country, the estimated HA for tournament victory is 22 percentage points (pp) for a HT with an average Elo rating. This HA decreases to 9 pp for a HT with a one standard deviation below-average Elo rating and increases to 42 pp for a HT with a one standard deviation above-average Elo rating. Hence, the stronger the HT, the larger is its expected HA for tournament victory. The tournament outcome of an away team (AT) can, therefore, also be affected by which country hosts the cup tournament. That is, a larger HA for tournament victory for the HT, or HTs in the case of multiple host countries, is also a larger disadvantage for the ATs.