Assessed refereeing decision (Sports Coverage)
Authors: Vögele Catharina , Schäfer Markus 
Published: April 2021

The variable "Assessed refereeing decision" refers to the question which decisions of referees are rated in media reports on football matches. It is coded which decisions made by referees (f. ex. penalty kicks, sending-offs or offside decisions) are assessed and how they are rated.

Field of application/theoretical foundation:
Ratings of refereeing decisions are omnipresent in the media coverage of football matches. They can be expressed either in live commentaries on football matches or in post-match reports and match analyses. When reporting on football matches, journalists are faced with the question which events during a match are worth reporting. Therefore, they face the challenge of having to make numerous selection decisions. In addition to the performance of players and teams on the pitch, the referees and their decisions can also influence the course and outcome of the game (e.g. Weston, Drust, Atkinson & Gregson, 2011). Concerning journalistic selection decisions, on the other hand, various factors can be important, such as the attitudes of the journalists, routines in media organizations or general journalistic rules (e.g. Donsbach, 1987, Weischenberg, 1992). In order to understand why journalists make which selection decisions, it is first important to identify which decisions they make and thus which refereeing decisions are rated and how they are rated.

References/combination with other methods of data collection:
In order to find out which refereeing decisions journalists select and discuss, an input-output analysis can be used to compare the refereeing decisions selected by journalists and all refereeing decisions made in the course of the match. Such a comparison with extra-media data makes it possible to identify which decisions are reported particularly frequently. In addition, the combination of content analytical results and surveys of referees and sports journalists is useful to identify reciprocal effects of media coverage of referees on the referees themselves (see Schäfer & Eschmann, 2019) and to ask sports journalists about the factors influencing their selection decisions.

Example study:
Vögele and Schäfer (2019) analyzed the coverage of referees in the German Bundesliga in tv match reports on the ARD Sportschau. For this purpose, they examined the ratings of referees in a total of 591 match reports in the seasons 2011/12 to 2017/18. For each rating of a referee, they recorded the main object of the refereeing evaluation (main referee, video assistant, assistant etc.), the tendency of the rating, the originator of the rating (commentator, actors of the participating associations etc.) as well as the requested or proposed alternative decision, in addition to the assessed refereeing decision. The reliability score of the coding for the assessed refereeing decision was an acceptable Krippendorff's Alpha of .91 (Holsti=.93; two coders*). The category "assessed refereeing decision" was described as follows (The complete codebook for analysis is available at: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/FU8H7)

Bewertete Schiedsrichterentscheidung

In dieser Kategorie wird erfasst, welche Schiedsrichterentscheidung der Bewertung der Schiedsrichter*innen zu Grunde liegt. Die Schiedsrichterentscheidungen sind dabei eingeteilt in Vergehen, persönliche Strafen und Spielfortsetzungen. Im Normalfall sollte immer die jeweilige detaillierte Ausprägung bei der Codierung erfasst werden. Kritisiert der Kommentator also beispielsweise, dass der Schiedsrichter einen Strafstoß gegeben hat, wird hier Strafstoß als bewertete Schiedsrichterentscheidung codiert. Stellt der Kommentator fest, dass der Schiedsrichter eine gelbe Karte zu Unrecht vergeben hat, wird gelbe Karte codiert.
Ist allgemein davon die Sprache, dass der Schiedsrichter viele Fehlentscheidungen getroffen hat, wird bei dieser Kategorie die Ausprägung 0 „Entscheidungen allgemein“ codiert.

0 keine spezielle Entscheidung, sondern Entscheidungen allgemein
10 Vergehen
11 Foulspiel
12 Handspiel
13 Tätlichkeit
14 Unsportlichkeit
15 Abseits
20 persönliche Strafe
21 Verwarnung/gelbe Karte
22 gelb-rote Karte
23 rote Karte
24 Ermahnung
30 Spielfortsetzung
31 Vergabe Strafstoß
32 Ausführung Strafstoß
33 Wiederholung Strafstoß
34 Vergabe Freistoß
35 Ausführung Freistoß
36 Wiederholung Freistoß
37 Vergabe Eckball
38 Ausführung Eckball
39 Vergabe Einwurf
40 Ausführung Einwurf
41 Schiedsrichterball
42 Weiterspielen
43 Anspiel/Tor
44 Abpfiff/Spielende
45 Abstoß
46 Halbzeitpfiff
99 Sonstige Entscheidung: _______________

References
Donsbach, W. (1987). Journalismusforschung in der Bundesrepublik. Offene Fragen trotz ‚Forschungsboom‘. In J. Wilke (Hrsg.), Zwischenbilanz der Journalistenausbildung (S. 105-142). München: Ölschläger.
Weischenberg, S. (1992). Journalistik. Theorie und Praxis aktueller Medienkommunikation. Band 1. Opladen: Westdeutscher.
Weston, M., Drust, B., Atkinson, G., & Gregson, W. (2011). Variability of soccer referees' match performances. International Journal of Sports Medicine, 32(3), 190-194.
Vögele, C., & Schäfer, M. (2019). Fußball-Schiedsrichter im Spiegel der Medien: Die Berichterstattung über Bundesliga-Schiedsrichter in der ARD-Sportschau. Journal für Sportkommunikation und Mediensport, 4(1), 1-24. Verfügbar unter: https://openjournals.hs-hannover.de/jskms/article/view/111/96