Does VAR Mitigate Finance-Driven Home Advantage? Evidence From the Turkish Super League
Does VAR Mitigate Finance-Driven Home Advantage? Evidence From the Turkish Super League

Summary/Abstract: Whether Video Assistant Referee (VAR) tempers finance driven home advantage is unclear. Using 1788 Turkish Super League matches (2017–18 pre VAR; five post VAR seasons excluding 2020–21), we estimate ordered logit models linking home outcomes to VAR, inflationadjusted squad value gaps and interactions. A decomposition separates talent-linked and residual finance. With financial parity, VAR’s direct effect is negligible; for richer hosts, VAR progressively cuts the finance driven home edge, reducing their odds of a better result by over one third immediately and nearly one half by 2023–24. This attenuation operates almost entirely through the talent channel: net of observed ability, finance still raises home success but with diminishing returns. VAR thus partially equalizes, narrowing but not closing financially driven disparities. Sustained competitive balance requires pairing video review with revenue sharing or spending caps.

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