The home-field advantage is a common subject in team sports and football. This phenomenon implies that a team performs better on home field than it would, if it met the same team on away field. Furthermore, the football season 2020 has been rather unique thus no crowd has been allowed into Swedish football stadiums. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine, analyze and compare statistics and then interview professional Swedish football players to find possible explanations to the final result of Allsvenskan 2020 for men. To fulfill our purpose with this study, we’ve used the method of triangulation and as a theoretical framework, we've used 6 of Pollards (2008) 8 factors concerning home field advantage. We´ve gathered all the statistics from the website footballstats.org and later on processed it thru a chi-squared-test to compare a theoretical outcome for the season 2020 with the crowd, with the actual outcome of the season 2020 without the crowd. The theoretical outcome was created by calculating the mean value of the seasons 2015-2019 combined. To facilitate the process, Allsvenskan has been divided into three pools. To explain our statistical result we’ve interviewed 3 players from different teams in the league, one from each pool. The results showed that the home-field advantage has decreased in all three pools. The teams in pool one have won significantly less games at home-field, while the teams in pool three has won more games at away field compared to the theoretical outcome. Crowd effects, psychological effects and travel effects have had the most impact on the home-field advantage according to the interviewed players. Rule factors, specific tactics and referee bias had less impact on the outcome.

The home-field advantage is a common subject in team sports and football. This phenomenon implies that a team performs better on home field than it would, if it met the same team on away field. Furthermore, the football season 2020 has been rather unique thus no crowd has been allowed into Swedish football stadiums. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine, analyze and compare statistics and then interview professional Swedish football players to find possible explanations to the final result of Allsvenskan 2020 for men. To fulfill our purpose with this study, we’ve used the method of triangulation and as a theoretical framework, we've used 6 of Pollards (2008) 8 factors concerning home field advantage. We´ve gathered all the statistics from the website footballstats.org and later on processed it thru a chi-squared-test to compare a theoretical outcome for the season 2020 with the crowd, with the actual outcome of the season 2020 without the crowd. The theoretical outcome was created by calculating the mean value of the seasons 2015-2019 combined. To facilitate the process, Allsvenskan has been divided into three pools. To explain our statistical result we’ve interviewed 3 players from different teams in the league, one from each pool. The results showed that the home-field advantage has decreased in all three pools. The teams in pool one have won significantly less games at home-field, while the teams in pool three has won more games at away field compared to the theoretical outcome. Crowd effects, psychological effects and travel effects have had the most impact on the home-field advantage according to the interviewed players. Rule factors, specific tactics and referee bias had less impact on the outcome.

Påverkade covid-19-pandemin fotbollsallsvenskan för herrar i Sverige? Vad hände när matcherna spelades utan publik? I detta examensarbete undersöks bland annat fenomenet hemmaplansfördel med tanke på covid-19-pandemin. Syftet med arbetet är att studera och analysera hur hemmaplansfördelen, antal gjorda mål, antalet varnade och utvisade spelare i herrallsvenskan har förändrats mellan säsongerna 2018, 2019, 2020 och 2021 med tanke på covid-19-pandemin. Med hjälp av inhämtning av statistik och matchresultat från svenskfotboll.se samt med olika beräkningar besvaras frågeställningarna om det finns någon skillnad i antalet vinster, antalet gjorda mål och utdelade kort för hemmalag respektive bortalag mellan säsongerna 2018, 2019, 2020 och 2021 och vad eventuella skillnader kan bero på. Genom att gå igenom vad tidigare forskning inom samma område säger och analysera 960 matchresultat i herrallsvenskan fås tydliga resultat som presenteras i tabeller. Resultatet visar att pandemi-säsongen 2020 utan publik sticker ut och överlag minskar snittet vinster på hemmaplan både på naturgräs och konstgräs och samtidigt ökar antalet oavgjorda matcher på hemmaplan. Den största och mest markanta differensen i resultatdelen är andelen vunna matcher på hemmaplan på naturgräs. Från säsongen 2019 till 2020 har denna kategori minskat med hela 12,8 procent. I diskussion- och analysdelen avhandlas olika potentiella bakomliggande orsaker till att hemmaplansfördelen har minskat under covid-19 pandemin och varför resultaten visar som det gör. För att kunna svara på syftet och frågeställningarna har jag tillämpat och diskuterat kring Pollards 8 bakomliggande faktorer kring hemmaplansfördel. Det behandlar publikeffekter, reseffekter, bekantskap med omgivningen, domarnas bias, territorialitet, speciell taktik, regelmässiga faktorer och psykologiska effekter. Vidare diskuteras vilka av dessa faktorer som kom att påverka allsvenskan mest under de fyra analyserade säsongerna. Slutsatser dras att reseeffekter och publikeffekten är de två största bakomliggande faktorerna till de skillnader vi ser under pandemisäsongen 2020. Avslutningsvis görs en jämförelse mellan denna studie och tidigare forskning, vilket visar att det överlag inte går att hitta något gemensam mönster men några ligor som till exempel Bundesliga, Serie A och Ligue 1 visar liknande resultat som min studie om herrallsvenskan i Sverige. / Did the covid-19-pandemic affect the Swedish top male football league? What happens when the matches are played without a crowd? In this study I investigate the phenomenon of home ground advantage with regard to the covid-19-pandemic. The aim of the study is to analyze and compare how the home-field advantage, number of goals scored, the number of players warned and sent off has changed in the Swedish top male football league between 2018 and 2021. 2018 and 2019 was played as normal with spectators but in 2020 there were no spectators and 2021 was played with a limited amount of spectators. With the help of statistics and match results from svenskfotboll.se and with various calculations, the questions answered are whether there is any difference in the number of wins, the number of goals scored and the number of cards handed out for home teams and away teams during the four selected seasons and what possible differences depend on. By going through what previous research on the same topic says and analyzing 960 match results in the Swedish top male football league, clear results are presented in different tables. The results show that the pandemic season in 2020, without spectators, stands out and overall the average wins at home were reduced both on natural grass and on artificial turf and at the same time the number of draws at home increased. The largest and the most significant difference was the proportion of matches won at home on natural grass. Between the 2019 season and the 2020 season this category has decreased by a percentage of 12.8. The discussion and analysis section focuses on various potential underlying reasons why the home ground advantage has decreased during the covid-19-pandemic. In order to answer the aim of the study and the questions Pollards (2008) 8 factors regarding home ground advantage are brought into the discussion. It deals with crowd effects, travel effects, familiarity with the environment, referee bias, territoriality, special tactics, rule factors and psychological effects. Conclusions are drawn that travel effects and crowd effects are the two biggest factors behind the differences we saw during the pandemic season 2020. At last a comparison is made between this study and previous research, which shows that it is not possible to find a common pattern but some football leagues such as the Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1 show similar results as my study of the Swedish top male football league.