Recent years have witnessed vigorous development in the application of mathematical and
computational techniques to many aspects of the organization and planning of sports …

This Palgrave Pivot presents tournament design mainly within the axioms of incentive
compatibility and fairness. It illustrates the advantages of an axiomatic approach through …

For every sports tournament, it is an important requirement to provide contestants with the
appropriate incentives to perform. However, incentive compatibility is usually considered an …

This paper analyzes the procedure used by FIFA up until 2018 to rank national football
teams and define by random draw the groups for the initial phase of the World Cup finals. A …

Every sport needs rules. Tournament design refers to the rules that determine how a
tournament, a series of games between a number of competitors, is organized. This study …

Fairness has several interpretations in sports, one of them being that the rules should
guarantee incentive compatibility, namely, a team cannot be worse off due to better results in …

The proposal of the European Super League and the 2024/25 reform of the UEFA
Champions League are both major events in European club football. This study compares …

The paper evaluates the impact of the only reform in the Champions Path of UEFA
Champions League qualifying system, effective from the 2018/19 season. In contrast to …

The draw for the 2022 FIFA World Cup has been organised before the identity of three
winners of the play-offs is revealed. Seeding has been based on the FIFA World Ranking …

If the final position of a team is already secured independently of the outcomes of the
remaining games in a round-robin tournament, it might play with little enthusiasm. This is …