Measuring the violence and incivility of players in professional sport and the disciplinary bodies’ management: statistical analysis of French professional football

Willem Ruppe (1) , Olivier Sirost (1) , Christophe Durand (2) , Nadine Dermit (1)

1 CETAPS - Centre d’études des transformations des activités physiques et sportives
2 CREM - Centre de recherche en économie et management

This paper presents the results of a statistical analysis of the violence and incivility of professional football players on and around the field and how the disciplinary bodies manage these phenomena. The sanctions issued by the disciplinary committees were examined with the objectives of (i) empirically determining the distribution of sanctioned behaviours and their evolution, and (ii) evaluating how these infringements on sporting ethics were handled. The 6027 observations collected from professional football competitions in France over ten seasons (2007-2008 to 2016-2017) highlight contrasting changes in sanctioned violence and incivilities and show that the disciplinary code was not fully applied in certain subcategories.

Mots clés: Regulatory effectiveness; disciplinary sanctions; players’ misconduct; behaviour regulation; professional football; disciplinary committees

Domaines: Sciences de l'Homme et Société; Gestion et management; Sociologie

Willem Ruppe, Olivier Sirost, Christophe Durand, Nadine Dermit. Measuring the violence and incivility of players in professional sport and the disciplinary bodies’ management: statistical analysis of French professional football. Sport in Society, 2020, 23 (6), pp.981-1003. ⟨10.1080/17430437.2020.1729132⟩. ⟨hal-02493550⟩