The comparison of home advantage in the Iranian premier football leagues with football leagues of different continents

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of home advantages in the Iranian Premier Football Leagues and compare it with famous football leagues from countries of five various continents of the world. So, the number of winnings and loosing at home matches of 25 countries from the five continents of the world including Asia, Europe, South America, Africa and Ocean (with USA), obtained via the web site of www.soccerway.com, were analyzed with independent sample t-test. The analysis of 18462 home matches from 3 recent leagues (2004- 2006) of different continents showed that the home advantage in Europe (55.56%), South America (55.18%) and Africa (57.33%) was more than Iran (54.12%) and in Ocean (53.74%) and Asia (51.31%) was less than Iran. However, the observed differences from all the continents, were not significant (p>0.05). In addition, this phenomenon has had the highest effect in Algeria (66.06%) and the lowest effect in Qatar (42.88%). This study showed that home advantage in the Iranian Football Premier League’s team performance can be as effective as the other parts of the worlds.