Violent Country of Origin = More Yellow Cards = More Violent in General?

I have to admit to being a sucker for academic studies. Seriously, I’ll be reading the newspaper and see, “Study shows dogs with fleas are more likely to scratch,” and I’ll think: Wow. Really? What’s the empirical evidence? And next thing I know I’ll be reading up on their control groups.

And when these studies involve soccer? Double score. So color me ecstatic when I see a study on… Well, why don’t I just let this guy tell you about it.

“Players in European leagues who come from countries with histories of civil war are more likely to behave violently on the soccer field, as measured by the number of yellow cards (cautions) they receive.”

Or, in other words, if you grow up surrounded by violence, you’re more likely to be violent. With on-field behavior being the yardstick.

The study compares “Years of Civil War since 1980″ to “Average Number of Yellow Cards Per Player per Season” and comes up with some interesting results. (Click on the above link for the diagram.) Off the charts on both scales? Israel and Columbia.

And of course you’re thinking, but what about other variables? Things like, oh, say, “income level of home country, continent of origin, position played (defender versus mid-fielder), and age”?

All controlled for, apparently.

Here’s the Abstract from the original study:

Abstract: Can some acts of violence be explained by a society’s “culture”? Scholars have found it hard to empirically disentangle the effects of culture, legal institutions, and poverty in driving violence. We address this problem by exploiting a natural experiment offered by the presence of thousands of international soccer (football) players in the European professional leagues. We find a strong relationship between the history of civil conflict in a player’s home country and his propensity to behave violently on the soccer field, as measured by yellow and red cards. This link is robust to region fixed effects, country characteristics, and player characteristics (e.g., age, field position, market value). Reinforcing our claim that we isolate cultures of violence rather than simple rule-breaking or something else entirely, there is no meaningful correlation between a player’s home country civil war history and regular (no-card) fouls earned or goals scored.
* Corresponding

I’d be curious to hear what academic types think of this study. To me? As one commenter said, “It seems to me that if you remove Colombia and Israel the line will be flat.” An interesting idea, but does it hold true outside of these two countries? I’m not convinced. But I’m not an academic.

Thoughts?

Further reading here.

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Category: World Football