Claims of “big-club bias” surface whenever tight calls and column inches seem to favour the EFL’s heaviest hitters — but what does recent evidence actually show?
From refereeing flashpoints to outsized media focus, supporters of smaller sides argue that high-profile clubs such as Leeds United, Sunderland and West Bromwich Albion benefit from the spotlight.
Big Decisions Question, But Is It Big Club Bias?
“Big-club bias” typically gets framed in 2 arenas: on-field decisions and off-field narratives. On the pitch, research across European football has documented patterns consistent with favourable treatment for higher-status teams, particularly in discretionary moments like added time or marginal penalty calls.
One peer-reviewed study found officials tend to add more second-half stoppage time when a high-status team is behind and less when it is ahead, a mechanism that can tilt close games at the margins.
Recent EFL storylines keep the debate alive, but so-called big clubs are the victims. Leeds United spent 2023/24 flagging officiating errors; by June 2024, local reporting detailed multiple PGMOL apology letters acknowledging mistakes in games that cost points.
This wasn’t big club bias as such, but an apparent anti-Leeds bias. However, now that they’re Premier League, they can lean towards big club bias, just as Fulham can following a blatant mistake in their game against Big 6 side Chelsea.
BREAKING: The PGMOL have acknowledged that VAR made a mistake in disallowing Josh King’s goal for Fulham against Chelsea 🚨 pic.twitter.com/rVwUb5IZJN
— Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) August 31, 2025
At West Brom, controversy around penalty non-awards dominated the opening weeks of 2025/26. After Portsmouth’s equaliser at The Hawthorns in August, Albion figures were booked while protesting a denied spot-kick for contact in the area, with local and national coverage amplifying debate about consistency and whether officials subconsciously protect reputations or home advantage.
Again, that’s not specifically a big club bias, is it? That’s home bias, another argument entirely.
Sunderland have likewise been centre stage. In October 2025, a first-half penalty against Manchester United was overturned after a long review, prompting a former PGMOL chief to criticise the intervention’s threshold on broadcast and in print. That’s a big club bias, but something Accrington Stanley might have fought against when playing against Sunderland a couple of years ago.
The big club bias appears when a truly ‘small’ club plays a real giant. That’s either a Premier League game or a cup tie. For instance, in a recent EFL Cup match between Lincoln City and Chelsea, the referee avoided booking a Chelsea player for kicking the ball away and turned down a big Lincoln penalty appeal.
How To Manage So-Called Big Club Bias
The EFL and PGMOL have leaned on transparency as the antidote. Public acknowledgements of error and referee “stand-downs” post-match are more frequent than in past seasons, and high-profile VAR or refereeing controversies across the pyramid are now dissected in weekly explainer content.
Such an inept “performance” by Jacob Miles – we need referees in the EFL, not tennis umpires @FA_PGMOL @efl #bwfc #efl pic.twitter.com/hZLW9V1GeH
— Chris Bishop (@cpbishop) August 23, 2025
With transparency in place, does big-club bias exist? The fairest current reading is undecided. Academic evidence supports the idea that status and context can influence discretionary decisions — more stoppage time here, a marginal foul there. But that is at the Premier League level. Is there enough of a gap between Oxford United and Middlesbrough to even class either side as a ‘big club’ or not? The answer is probably not, no.
There is more likely to be situational bias – an angry home crowd, reactive players and aggressive managers. Many analyses find no systematic bias once game state and expectations are controlled. In other words, humans are human, and small, repeated nudges in subjective moments can look and feel like favouritism without proving an organised tilt toward any one club.
Practical fixes are already on the table to address the debate, whether there is an issue or not:
- Communication clarity: Publishing incident-level rationales for major decisions, with clips and law references, helps align expectations across clubs of all sizes.
- Referee development and selection: Broaden appointment pools and rotate officials across status profiles to dilute familiarity effects and crowd-pressure patterns suggested in research.
- Broadcast framing: Producers can pair slow-mo with real-speed replays and neutral language, reducing narrative slant that cascades through the news cycle.
- Club engagement: Regular, structured briefings between clubs and PGMOL can channel grievances into measurable process changes rather than weekend flashpoints.
For supporters of smaller clubs, the lived reality will remain visceral until trends look different: a soft penalty at a famous ground, a borderline added-time call when the underdog leads, or a Monday morning apology that can’t return points.
PGMOL and @WeAreTheFSA have strengthened their dialogue through the creation of a new working group.
Read more ⤵️
— PGMO (@FA_PGMOL) December 21, 2023
For bigger clubs, the counter is familiar: more cameras and more scrutiny also mean more clipped errors, more think-pieces and, often, higher bars for contact and time-wasting that cut against them.
The EFL’s credibility question, then, isn’t settled by any single study or one weekend’s decisions. It’s whether the cumulative ecosystem, from refereeing processes to media framing and disciplinary outcomes, convinces fans that context is being managed, not managing the game.
Until then, every marginal whistle at The LNER Stadium or The Hawthorns will be argued as the latest exhibit — and every smaller-club fan will keep receipts.
