Influence of environmental temperature on home advantage in Qatari international soccer matches

Soccer matches are often played in challenging environmental conditions where the ambient temperature can exceed 30°C, possibly with a high relative humidity. Such environments are known to be detrimental to a player's performance as it poses severe challenges to thermoregulatory control (Mohr et al., 2012; Racinais et al., 2012). Recently, the difficulties of playing in high temperatures were well illustrated during the final match of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, where air temperatures on the field reached 42°C (Maughan et al., 2010).