PENALTIES, CORRUPTION AND SELECTIVE STATISTICS
Following the Derby Day draw, and in line with expectations, the usual fallout following these games has unsurprisingly occurred. The media and social media narrative has been entirely focussed on penalty decisions, referee loyalty, conspiracies and corruption.
The game itself was entertaining, with spells of dominance for both sides but also a large number of unforced errors. Personally, and with a bit of bias possibly, I thought we edged it slightly and the draw felt more like a defeat than anything else. I think the reality set in that a win was needed if there was any chance of chasing our rivals down for the league this season and 9 points at this stage seems an unlikely points’ gap to close in the remaining games.
Focus should really turn to the beginning of a rebuild for Michael Beale and winning the 2 domestic cups left on offer whilst finishing the league as strong as possible. It would be preferable to get a couple of players in this month in preparation for next season, then they will have a few months under their belt and be ready to go from the off in the summer.
Due to the usual furore in the aftermath of these games about referee preferences, which lodges they frequent and some clubs considering writing to UEFA to investigate corruption within the Scottish game, I thought I would take a look at penalty statistics for our top 2 clubs compared to similar leagues and clubs across Europe.
For those that are regularly on Twitter, you may or may not have seen a few of our East End minded acquaintances fish out statistics for penalties awarded, penalties conceded and the net differential for these over the last few years. You will notice that they tend to start from season 2018/19, full in the knowledge that the 2 seasons prior to that, Celtic significantly outperformed Rangers in penalties awarded to them and penalties conceded was less as well.
Now, I am sure this was purely coincidental on their part. I even saw one comparing Rangers penalty statistics to “other dominant teams” around Europe. The list seemed very selective, so I thought I would have a look further myself to see what the reality of the situation was around the Old Firm team’s penalty statistics compared to similar leagues and clubs around Europe.
I started collating my data, mainly through TransferMarkt, however, I had to go digging in other places for some of the information to complete it.
To understand the full extent on the statistics I collated I did the following:
From UEFA Association Coefficient as at the end of the 2021/22 season I picked the leagues from 6th – 20th position. This is essentially the top 20 leagues, ignoring the top 5 who are on a different planet really. Scotland were 9th in that table.
The countries selected were therefore – Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Rep, Denmark, Greece, Holland, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Scotland, Serbia, Switzerland and Turkey. Note Ukraine should also be on this list but due to the war and also not being able to collate reliable statistics on penalties conceded, have been omitted from the end results.
From these 14 countries I then decided to focus on clubs that were consistently qualifying from Europe. The final decision was made to include all clubs who had a Co-efficient total (as per UEFA website) at the end of the 2021/22 season of 12.00 and above. This resulted in a total of 49 clubs across the 14 countries and all countries being represented at least twice.
I collated statistics for each season from 2016/17 up to the end of the 2021/22 season for penalties awarded, penalties conceded and total matches played. From those, I was able to calculate the differential (awarded – conceded) and then repeat the analysis on a “per game” basis as well as not all leagues play the same amount of games.
Also worth noting – of the 14 leagues I evaluated, 10 of those leagues for the 2019/20 season (Covid season) completed their seasons in full. In Belgium, the Championship round (post-split) was reduced to 1 round per team (from the usual 2), Serbia decided not to enter their play-off round and finished the league having played everyone twice. Holland cancelled the season, league placings at the time were used for European places (which we were told was not permissible) and there was no relegation and no Champions crowned. Leaving Scotland, the only nation out of the 14 leagues that made no attempt to complete the season or come to a reasonable conclusion but still managed to crown champions and relegated a team on an incomplete season.
Back to penalty statistics. Having collated the information for all 49 clubs across the 14 leagues, I then filtered them by each statistic and compared the results to both Rangers and Celtic and to the average and median results for the dataset as a comparison. I present the “Top 5” for each category with Rangers, Celtic, Average and Median below:
As you can see, Crvena Zvezda (That’s Red Star Belgrade to the Da’s) lead the list in total penalties awarded over the 6 seasons. It seems a significant outlier, but not as bad when you compare it on a per match basis to the rest of the top 5. Rangers fare slightly better than Celtic, but comparing to the average and median figures, there are no signs of significant outliers. On a “per match” basis, Rangers actually drop to 23rd out of the 46 clubs, bang in the middle, with Celtic at 31st. Celtic are slightly below the median and average in total and a “per match” basis. So there is no indication that either Rangers or Celtic have particularly strange outcomes when it comes to Penalties Awarded.
Looking at Penalties conceded, Rangers and Celtic have very similar statistics and are above average for least amount conceded. They are very close in both tables as the total penalties conceded are very similar. Both clubs are very close to the average and median amounts across the top sides from the comparative nations in Europe. Again, no significant outliers. The only notable thing to take from this so far is that Crvena Zvezda (Red Star Belgrade) are top spot for the most amount of penalties awarded and the least amount of penalties conceded.
No surprise to see the clubs who performed either very high in penalties awarded or very low in penalties conceded return to the penalties differential table (which is penalties awarded less penalties conceded). This is the statistic that Celtic fans thought would definitely prove there is corruption within our game. Rangers sneak into the top 10 across 46 similar league clubs with Celtic in 20th. Rangers fall significantly below the top 5, an entire 10 behind 5th place and a remarkable 38 behind Crvena Zvezda. Celtic out perform the average and median figures both in total and on a per-game basis. Rangers remain in 10th place in the “per game” basis and Celtic drop slightly but seeing as there is only a 0.04 difference between 9th and 29th, we can see both clubs still operating in very much the average bracket in contrast to similar clubs from the other leagues around their level.
I did some sensitivity analysis to see if it would garner any significantly different results. I decided to reduce the clubs to those with 15.00 coefficient points in total at the end of 21/22 season. Each nation was represented at least twice so I restricted it to the top 2 clubs from each nation, with 3 from the larger nations of Russia, Holland and Portugal. This resulted in 31 teams in total. All the teams in each of the top 5 brackets remained the exact same. The median figures had no significant difference whatsoever. Average figures on a per game basis had little difference either, not so much that the changes would cause any significant change in results. Average penalties awarded increased slightly to 44.13 from the previous 41.07, and 0.22 from the previous 0.21. On penalties conceded, the average dropped to 20.35 from 21.46 and on a per match basis remains at 0.11. Penalty Differential average increased to 23.77 from 19.61 and on a per match basis to 0.12 from 0.09.
I also looked at some potential outliers in individual seasons. Note that in no season did Rangers or Celtic concede 0 penalties. The following clubs all managed to complete a league season without conceding a penalty: Bodo Glimt, AZ Alkmaar, Club Brugges, Crvena Zvezda, Ajax, Olympiakos, Porto, Copenhagen, Rosenborg, Viktoria Plzen. That’s 10 times it happened across 14 leagues over 6 seasons. Which is a strike rate of 3.40%. So not as unusual if this was to happen as expected.
I also looked on a per season basis how Rangers and Celtic performed in penalties conceded and awarded. In penalties for, Rangers broke into the top 10 twice, 9th in 21/22 and 5th in 18/19. Celtic managed a top 10 finish once, finishing 3rd in 16/17. The lowest performing between either club were Rangers in the 19/20 season (Celtic going for 9IAR) and finished in 40th position out of all 46 clubs. However, Celtic were also pretty low that year in 33rd place. Rangers were 2nd and 4th in penalties conceded in 20/21 and 19/20 respectively. Celtic only once broke into the top 10 in any of the 6 years, coming 10th in 21/22. Rangers did finish 43rd out of 46 in 17/18 however, one of the worst records across the comparable leagues in one season. But seeing that over the 6 seasons Rangers have conceded 18 and Celtic 19, both above average but not by any means an outlier, goes to show how focussing on 1 or 2 seasons never paints the whole picture.
Selective penalty statistics can be used to paint a picture to suit a narrative in many ways. There is often discussion around amount of possession, attacking teams etc. In one-off seasons there is never an easy correlation to make, but over time, as expected, teams who are regularly at the top will be towards the top of both penalties awarded and penalties conceded tables. For example, in the current SPFL season – Hearts, Livi and Aberdeen all lead the way with 8 penalties each. Rangers have 5 and Celtic have 2. Over the last 10 years the record held by any club for penalties in 1 season is actually held by Inverness Caledonian Thistle in 2012/13 with 14 penalties. In the same period, Rangers and Celtic have never reached that amount in one season. The highest over that period is 14, but the lowest amount of highest penalties in one complete season is 7 (6 in 2019/20 but not a complete season).
As always with statistics – the larger a dataset you have and the more relevant the comparative figures are will always give a greater picture of reality over time. There are so many factors to consider when looking at penalties across countries – quality of refs, quality of teams, level of competitiveness in league, impact of introduction of VAR, the culture of refereeing in each country, the list goes on.
Overall, there are no significant outlying figures for either Rangers or Celtic across the 6 seasons and the comparable 14 leagues. Within one season there might be the odd one, but when you spread the net far and wide, it is extremely difficult to legitimately suggest there is signs of corruption within our game, which of course, to any normal football fan in Scotland is of no surprise. But it is always good to test the waters just in case. Without even looking into these statistics, a club who claim corruption, but required a “rousing intervention” from their club chairman in order to prevent an independent enquiry into the running of our game, in anyone’s eyes, a careless and thoughtless comment.
As always, ignore the noise, the evidence is there for anyone who cares to look hard enough for the reality of the situation. I think our referees can rest easy for a wee while, UEFA’s anti-corruption unit will be making a fair few trips to sunnier climates such as Serbia, Portugal, Greece, Holland and Czechia long before they set foot in the Crown Bar looking to ask our referees anything.
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