A statistical study of racism in English football

The English Premier League is often quoted as being the ‘best football league in the world’, a mix of British born and international stars showing off their skills almost every week. With around 25 % of Premier League players being from ethnic minority backgrounds, it is arguably one of the world’s most inclusive sports leagues—but is it really as fair as it seems? This analysis looks at the 2011–2012 Premier League season, to investigate whether there existed evidence of forms of racial discrimination against Black, non-White and non-European players during this period. We analyze player data collected from two hundred and ninety players and seventeen teams using logistic regression, to determine how being a Black, non-White or non-European player depends on variables like total number of appearances, number of fouls, number of yellow cards, number of red cards, number of cards awarded by English referees, number of cards awarded by non-English referees, total number of goals scored by the team, and total number of goals scored by the player. Our results show that there does seem to exist some discrepancy between the treatment of non-White and non-European and Black players compared to the sample of White players.