Manuscript Analysis System for Emotional Behavior in Football (ASEB-F): Matches of FC Red Bull Salzburg without Supporters during the COVID-19 Pandemic Michael Christian Leitner 1,2 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9341-854X Fabio Richlan 1,2 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5373-3425 1 Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience (CCNS), University of Salzburg, Austria 2 Department of Psychology, University of Salzburg, Austria Draft version 2.0, 06/12/2020 The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest Keywords: human behavior, nonverbal behavior, sport psychology, sports performance, football, soccer, ghost games, no crowd, no supporters, home advantage, referees, covid-19 Corresponding author: Michael C. Leitner / University of Salzburg / Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience / Department of Psychology / Hellbrunnerstrasse 34 / 5020 Salzburg / Austria
[email protected] / +43 664 5245263 Analysis System for Emotional Behavior in Football (ASEB-F): Matches of FC Red Bull Salzburg without Supporters during the COVID-19 Pandemic Abstract During the COVID-19 pandemic the “Austrian Bundesliga” – as in many other European football leagues – resumed the season around the end of May 2020 without supporters in the stadiums. These so-called “ghost games” represent a unique and unprecedented opportunity to study the effects of the (missing) audience on the behavior and experience of sports professionals. The present study is the first of its kind, aimed at addressing the psychological effects of these “ghost games” on football players, staff, and officials. The newly developed “Analysis System for Emotional Behavior in Football” (ASEB-F) was used to video analyze and compare the behavior of players, staff, and officials in – in sum – 20 games of FC Red Bull Salzburg in the “Championship Groups” of season 2018/19 (“regular games”) and season 2019/20 (“ghost games”).