Tall players get the short end during fouls

 Football referees forced to make a snap decision on a questionable foul are more likely to rule against the taller player in the challenge, according to new research by two management school researchers.

Niels van Quaquebeke and Steffen Giessner, German scientists at Erasmus University’s Rotterdam School of Management, reached the conclusion after studying 123,844 fouls from seven Champions League and German Bundesliga campaigns along with the last three World Cups.

“We found that on average the player who committed the foul is taller than the one who was the victim,” Giessner said on Wednesday in a telephone interview.

To support their initial finding, they carried out experiments by showing a group of football fans drawings of two players involved in a tackle – one taller than the other. In both scenarios, the fans said taller players were more likely to have committed a foul than shorter players.

The reason, Van Quaquebeke and Giessner say, can be traced back to caveman days.

“Humans throughout evolution needed to be more afraid of bigger animals because bigger animals usually have more potential to harm us,” said Van Quaquebeke.

Height is not the only factor influencing referees’ decisions, he added. Earlier research has suggested that even the colour of a player’s shirt could have an effect.

“We are human beings, we are not objective information processors,” said Van Quaquebeke. “We are very subjective, especially if we don’t have all the information available – we’ve got to make the best guess.”

While the findings could bolster the case for using of video replays to help officials at football matches, Van Quaquebeke and Giessner say they agree with FIFA president Sepp Blatter that such reviews would slow down the game and take away its human element.

Instead, they suggest better training for referees to help them overcome such subjective decisions.

In the meantime, the researchers are hopeful about Germany’s chances at the World Cup in South Africa this year – and they see an advantage for their team because of the diminutive stature of one of their key players.

“We are happy to have Philipp Lahm,” Van Quaquebeke said of the 1.70m (5-foot-7) defender.