Survival analysis of football referees in Madrid, 1991-2021: a data-science approach

Abstract

While football is a billionaire spectacle, the figure of the referee mainly presents an amateur career and a notorious diversity among the different national and regional federations. In this article, we analyse which variables determine the lifespan of the referee’s career in Madrid. We apply survival analysis toa dataset of 2,978 registered referees provided by the Real Federation de Fútbol de Madrid (RFFM). The results show relevant conclusions like the different career paths of men and women, the incidence of belonging to each of the three branch offices, the effect of being a ‘talent’, which are the category levels where men and women mainly drop, the relevance of starting on an earlier age and the positive effect of having been born in Madrid for men. They all constitute remarkable insights to be considered when establishing recruitment policies, training and development and support for young and active referees.