Standing tall brings penalty

As the managers of national football teams begin to choose 1 ………… players for the season, most of them won’t be listening to the ideas of social psycholo­gists. Perhaps they 2…………….

Research 3 ………… shown that football referees are more likely to penalise taller players when they tackle smaller oppo­nents. This is bad news 4 …………. England striker Peter Crouch who at 2m in height could be 5 ………… tallest footballer nowadays.

A study of more than 100,000 fouls in domestic, Euro­pean and international football showed 6 ……………. interesting results. The 7 …………….. the height difference between the two players is the more chance the referee will decide in favour 8 ………….. the shorter one.

Academics from Rotterdam school of management in the Netherlands 9 …………… tested their ideas by asking football fans 10 ………….. at images of two players running towards a ball.

When asked 11 ……………. of the footballers would end up on the ground more people thought 12 …………. the smaller player would be the victim and the 13 ………… one the aggressor.

"You will 14 …………… get moments in a game when the situ­ation isn’t very clear and the referee 15 ……….. to make a fast decision. This is where assumptions 16 ………….. influence them," said Steffen Giessner, one of the authors of the report. "There is 17 ………. effect with height, but we can’t say how strong it is."

The researchers thought that their results might 18 …………. due to taller footballers often playing in defence, 19 ………….. fouls might be more common. But a closer look at their data revealed that the largest number of fouls 20 ………….. done by smaller midfield footballers against other players in the same position.