European qualifiers to the 2018 FIFA World Cup can be manipulated

Csató, László (2017): European qualifiers to the 2018 FIFA World Cup can be manipulated.

Abstract

Tournament organizers supposedly design rules such that a team cannot be better off by exerting a lower effort. It is shown that the European qualifiers to the 2018 FIFA World Cup are not strategy-proof in this sense: a team might be eliminated if it wins in the last matchday of group stage, while it advances to play-offs by playing a draw, provided that all other results do not change. An example reveals that this scenario could have happened in October 2017, after four-fifth of all matches have already been played. We present a model and identify nine incentive incompatible qualifiers to recent UEFA European Championships or FIFA World Cups. A mechanism is suggested in order to seal the way of manipulation in group-based qualification systems.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: OR in sport; 2018 FIFA World Cup; tournament ranking; mechanism design; strategy-proofness
• Subjects: C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C4 - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics > C44 - Operations Research ; Statistical Decision Theory; C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C7 - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory > C72 - Noncooperative Games; D - Microeconomics > D7 - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making > D71 - Social Choice ; Clubs ; Committees ; Associations

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