Investigative feature: Football bias

Investigative Feature: Football Bias

For my interview I will be studying bias in football among how fans who would be biased towards their particular teams. To do this will study past examples of incidents, which have happened on and off the pitch between clubs, which means that the interpretation can be ambiguous.

Bias is when a situation is interpreted dies-honestly from a perspective, which is support of their own thing. For example a football team. A football team is more typical because it is competitive and contains a lot of passion because of supporters standing by their team. An example of this would be that if a Liverpool player were to tackle an Everton player It is not a coincidence that supporters of Liverpool will stand by their player and say that it was not a film, the Everton supporters will say that it is a foul despite both sets of fans seeing the same incident.

The theory is that fans will stick up for their team despite evidence going against them, they will find any reason to back up why they are right and will not admit that they are wrong. They will do this as a sign of passion and support for in some cases the only thing that they have got, their club. This is also cause by the fact that football fans are positive, admitting that ‘a goal should have stood’ or ‘the tackle was not a foul’ is a sign of negativity as they will see it as their club doing something wrong.

In many cases supporters will know that their club is in the wrong, but will still be biased, even if it is un-defendable. This is why people will bring up past incidents to make it seem even. ‘That wasn’t a red card’, “the same thing happened to us last season and he was sent off’. This shows that people will never cease to support their club. In other times, people genuinely believe that their club is in the right. There is a theory that, for example a fan will look at a situation from their own player’s perspective. If a Liverpool went into a tackle, the Liverpool fans would say that ‘it was a reasonable challenge, wereas other supporters would say ‘the tackle was too harsh’. In this case bias may not be applied consciously because there is reason and justification towards the argument, and the supporter would be honest. However, this may provoke the cliché: ‘You would say that, you support them’. This means that football fans are conventionally dis-honest.

These are the questions I asked and the responses I got.

Do you think the challenge was a worthy of a red card?

(Relevant to the Kompany foul against Manchester United on Nani in the FA Cup)

Manchester City fan: ’It was not a red, 10-15 years ago this would not have been a red card, he didn’t even touch him”

Manchester United fan: ’Football has changed, he did not touch the player but if he did he would have broken his leg. We need to eradicate this from the game.

These responses are from passionate supporters defending their team with reasonable perspectives, but these are more generalised opinions meaning despite a decent response there is still bias.

This is also relevant in other things in football in terms of teams as a whole.

Who do you think will win the premier league this season?

Manchester City fan: “We have the best team, we are top of the league. Its simple, Man City will win”

Manchester United fan: “We may not be top but we are close behind. Our team has more experience of winning the league than city”.

This is a sign of people showing support for their team. Singing, and shouting support from the stands are other ways of showing optimism and hope that they can win the match. But whether a team will win the league is a different question because it requires more than a team just ‘doing well’.

How do you think Fernando Torres has done this season?

Chelsea fan: “It has taken him a long time, but in recent weeks he has shown signs of improvement”

Other football fan: “Look at the statistics, under five goals in 12 months at Chelsea. He will never reach his past form again”.

The Chelsea fan will stick up for Torres because in his opinion sees potential. Chelsea fans have a better opinion in some ways because they see him play every week and have a more assessed view. Fans do not necessarily always stick up for their own players. For example

How do you think Henderson has played for Liverpool this season?

Liverpool fan: Terribly, he has a lot of potential but not £20 million worth of potential.

Liverpool fan: “He may be young and fast, but he has no skill and no footballing brain”

This shows that fans can turn against their own players and have their own opinions and that not all fans are dillusional.

My interviewees were just ordinary football fans. In some ways due to the expansionism of football they have become experts in the subject. This is down to the fact that fans can watch football games from the comfort of their own home. Moreover, the amount of coverage is extreme. During live games there are a large amount of cameras around the stadium meaning that many replays can be shown from different angles and in slow motion. This means that fans can give a clear opinion rather that seeing the incident one and in real time.