László Csató, Diána Ivett Fűrész, Zsolt Havran
arXiv 15 Oct 2026 · Econometrics
arXiv:2610.21296 · PDF · Extracted main text
Single round-robin tournaments are widely regarded as unfair because of their home-away imbalance: some competitors play more home games than the others. Therefore, most sports leagues are played in a double round-robin format. However, some European football leagues contain a single round-robin (sub)tournament. To test whether empirical data can validate their unfairness, we construct a unique database and develop a strength of schedule metric based on Elo ratings with favourable theoretical properties. In contrast to the robust impact of relative team strength, the strength of schedule is found to have no significant effect on the number of points scored under the assumption of a league-specific home advantage. Consequently, the theoretical unfairness is not a serious issue in practice, or the standard approach of modelling home advantage in Elo ratings might need to be reconsidered.
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The works this paper leans on most, across its whole bibliography — not restricted to papers in our corpus. Ranked by composite intensity, which combines how often a work is mentioned, how many sections mention it, and how much of that falls in the main text rather than the appendix.
| Reference | Intensity | Mentions | Sections | Main text | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wessel, S., Hurkens, C., and Spieksma, F (2026) Fair schedules for single round robin tournaments with ranked participants | 1.000 | 5 | 4 | 100% |
| 2 | Csató, L. and Krumer, A (2026) Swiss-system chess tournaments and unfairness | 0.644 | 2 | 2 | 100% |
| 3 | Rasmussen, R. V (2008) Scheduling a triple round robin tournament for the best Danish soccer league | 0.644 | 2 | 2 | 100% |
| 4 | Goossens, D. and Spieksma, F. C. R (2012) Soccer schedules in Europe: An overview | 0.511 | 2 | 2 | 50% |
| 5 | van Ours, J. C (2024) Nontransitive patterns in long-term football rivalries | 0.511 | 2 | 1 | 100% |
| 6 | Bosker, J. and Gürtler, M (2024) The impact of cultural differences on the success of elite labor migration–-Evidence from professional soccer | 0.405 | 1 | 1 | 100% |
| 7 | Csató, L (2022) Quantifying incentive (in)compatibility: A case study from sports | 0.405 | 1 | 1 | 100% |
| 8 | Csató, L (2022) UEFA against the champions? An evaluation of the recent reform of the Champions League qualification | 0.405 | 1 | 1 | 100% |
| 9 | Csató, L (2024) Club coefficients in the UEFA Champions League: Time for shift to an Elo-based formula | 0.405 | 1 | 1 | 100% |
| 10 | Csató, L., Kiss, L. M., and Szádoczki, Zs (2025) The allocation of FIFA World Cup slots based on the ranking of confederations | 0.405 | 1 | 1 | 100% |
Showing the top 10 of 42 scored citations.