The 418th edition of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post ranks 75 leagues around the world according to the frequency of penalties awarded by referees since 1 January 2020. The Egyptian Premier League heads the rankings with a penalty whistled every 172 minutes (not including injury time) compared to a global average of 271 minutes.

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Editors:
Raffaele Poli
Roger Besson
Loïc Ravenel
Thomas Gonzalez

The Saudi Pro League (every 178 minutes) and the Russian Premier League (every 187 minutes) round up the podium, with the Italian Serie A (every 235 minutes) at the top among the big-5 European leagues. At the other end of the scale are the Japanese J1 League (every 520 minutes) and J2 League (every 613 minutes), as well as the English Championship, League One and League Two.

In terms of conversion rates, the world average is 77.1%. The maximum was recorded in the French Ligue 1 and the Qatar Stars League (82.2%), while the minimum was observed in the South African PSL (71.4%). The conversion rate is also particularly low in the Portuguese Primeira Liga (73.4%) and the Spanish Liga (74.9%).