Without Crowds: What Happened to Cards and Fouls in Empty Stadiums
Behind closed doors, away sides stopped collecting more yellow cards than their hosts. When the crowds came back, so did the gap. Here is what that tells a cards bettor.
- 0.32Away-minus-home yellows per match with crowds
- 0.01Same gap in empty stadiums
- 49.6%Home share of yellow cards, 2020/21
- 8,208Empty-stadium matches
Every cards bettor learns early that the away side tends to be booked more often. The harder question is why. It could be that away teams defend more and foul more, or it could be that the noise in the stands leans on the referee. The empty-stadium season gave us something close to a natural experiment, and I wanted to see what it showed.
The answer is about as clean as football data gets. Across 21 European divisions and 67,047 matches, the away side's yellow card surplus went from 0.32 per match with crowds to 0.01 without them, then came back to 0.27 once fans returned. If you follow my yellow card tips page, this is the study behind why I give the away side extra weight in booking markets, and why I only do so when there is a crowd in the ground.
Q1Did away sides stop getting more yellows without fans?
The dumbbell shows home and away yellow cards per match in each period. Before the pandemic, across 23,204 matches, away sides averaged 2.13 and home sides 1.81. In the 8,208 empty-stadium matches the two dots almost touch: 1.92 away, 1.91 home.
With crowds back, across 35,289 matches, the bar stretches out again to 2.18 away and 1.91 home. The home figure barely moved between the empty period and the return of fans, while the away figure jumped back up. That pattern says the crowd was mostly costing the visitors, rather than protecting the hosts.
View the data: yellow cards per match: home vs away side
| Home side | Away side | |
|---|---|---|
| With crowds, before (23,204 games) | 1.81 | 2.13 |
| Empty stadiums (8,208 games) | 1.91 | 1.92 |
| Crowds back (35,289 games) | 1.91 | 2.18 |
Total yellows per match tell a quieter story: 3.94 before, 3.82 without crowds, 4.09 after. So the card count overall shifted only slightly. What changed was who was being booked, and for a bettor working with booking points or team card lines, that matters more than the overall total.
Q2Was the away booking gap the same across every league tier?
A reasonable objection is that elite referees might behave differently from those lower down. The table splits the effect by league group. The Big Five started with the smallest gap at 0.26, the other top flights the largest at 0.37, and the second tiers and below sat at 0.32.
Without fans, all of them collapsed to 0.01 or 0.00. The other top flights saw the biggest swing at −0.36, and even the Big Five, with their more scrutinised officials, moved by −0.25.
| League group | Empty-stadium games | Gap with crowds | Gap without | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Big Five | 2,234 | 0.26 | 0.01 | −0.25 |
| Other top flights | 2,026 | 0.37 | 0.01 | −0.36 |
| Second tiers and below | 3,948 | 0.32 | 0.00 | −0.32 |
I find this the most persuasive table in the study. The second tiers and below contribute 3,948 empty-stadium games, so the lower-league result is not a thin sample. The away booking premium appears to be a crowd effect at every level of the game.
Q3Did fouls shift as much as yellow cards did?
The line chart tracks the home side's share of yellows and fouls season by season. The yellow share sits in a narrow band, rises to 49.6% in 2020/21, the almost fan-free season, and then settles back to 46.8% by 2025/26. The foul share barely flinches, moving from 49.1% to a peak of 50.4% and back to 49.0%.
That contrast is the real finding. Home and away sides commit fouls in roughly equal measure in every period. With crowds, though, the away side's fouls are more likely to become cards. Total fouls per match also moved, 26.1 before, 26.7 without crowds and 24.0 after, but the split between home and away hardly changed.
2019/20 mixes matches with crowds and the first matches behind closed doors; 2020/21 was almost entirely without fans.
View the data: home side's share of yellow cards and fouls
| Share of yellows | Share of fouls | |
|---|---|---|
| 2016/17 | 46.1% | 49.1% |
| 2017/18 | 45.9% | 49.2% |
| 2018/19 | 46.0% | 49.3% |
| 2019/20 | 47.0% | 49.2% |
| 2020/21 | 49.6% | 50.4% |
| 2021/22 | 46.6% | 49.5% |
| 2022/23 | 46.6% | 49.4% |
| 2023/24 | 47.0% | 49.3% |
| 2024/25 | 46.5% | 49.2% |
| 2025/26 | 46.8% | 49.0% |
The main caveat belongs here. The empty-stadium sample is a single season, a few leagues let small capped crowds in for part of it, and refereeing guidance changed over the decade. I read the spike as strong evidence of a crowd effect, not as a precise measurement of one.
Q4Did home advantage in results fade along with cards?
Cards are only part of the picture. Home sides won 44.6% of matches before the pandemic, 40.8% in empty stadiums and 43.3% once fans returned. The bars show the same shape as the booking gap: a clear dip, then most of the way back.
Red cards follow the pattern too. Away reds ran at 11.8 per 100 matches with crowds and 10.7 without, while home reds rose from 8.6 to 9.7. Taken together, the crowd looks like one mechanism behind both the result and the booking edge.
View the data: home win rate in the three periods
| Share of all matches won by the home side | |
|---|---|
| Home win % - with crowds, before | 44.6% |
| Home win % - empty stadiums | 40.8% |
| Home win % - crowds back | 43.3% |
The playbook
How we would use these numbers before the next match.
- Price the crowd, not the shirt. The away surplus of 0.27 yellows per match since fans returned is a crowd effect, not a team trait. Weigh how full and how hostile the ground is likely to be before leaning on the away side in card markets.
- Separate fouls from cards. The home share of fouls stayed close to half in every period, while the yellow share moved. Do not assume a high-fouling away side will convert those fouls into cards at the same rate in a quiet stadium.
- Discount restricted-attendance fixtures. Behind closed doors the gap fell to 0.01, so any match with a closed or partly closed stand deserves a smaller away card adjustment. The same applies to home win prices, given the dip to 40.8%.
Data & method
- Data: 21 European divisions, 2016/17-2025/26, 67,047 matches with full match statistics.
- Empty-stadium period = matches from 16 May 2020 to 31 May 2021; "before" = 2016/17 up to the end of February 2020; "crowds back" = from August 2021.
- Matches in March-mid-May 2020 and June-July 2021 are left out of the period comparison but included in the season line.
- Home share = home side's yellows (or fouls) divided by both sides' total.
- All divisions with full match statistics are included; leagues that cancelled their 2019/20 restart simply contribute fewer empty-stadium games.
- Caveat: A few leagues admitted small, capped crowds for parts of 2020/21, which would dilute the effect.
- Caveat: The empty-stadium sample is one season; refereeing guidance also changed over the period.
Quick Q&A
- Do away teams get more yellow cards than home teams?
- Yes, when crowds are present. Since fans returned, away sides have averaged 2.18 yellows per match against 1.91 for home sides, a gap of 0.27.
- What happened to yellow cards in empty stadiums?
- The away booking premium almost vanished. Across 8,208 matches without fans, away sides averaged 1.92 yellows and home sides 1.91, a gap of just 0.01.
- Did home advantage disappear without fans?
- It shrank but did not disappear. Home sides won 40.8% of empty-stadium matches, compared with 44.6% before the pandemic and 43.3% after crowds returned.
I'm Eleanor Crow, editor at Soccers Tips. After a decade writing football betting previews I now lead the team and keep our analysis honest across every market we cover.
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