In a round-robin tournament, a team may lack the incentive to win if its final rank does not depend on the outcome of the matches still to be played. This paper introduces a classification scheme to determine these weakly (where one team is indifferent) or strongly (where both teams are indifferent) stakeless matches in a double round-robin contest with four teams. The probability that such matches arise can serve as a novel fairness criterion to compare and evaluate match schedules. Our approach is illustrated by the UEFA Champions League group stage. A simulation model is built to compare the 12 valid schedules for the group matches. Some schedules are shown to be dominated by other schedules. It is found that the strongest team should play at home in the last round, but not against the weakest team. Choosing an optimal sequence of matches with respect to the proposed metric increases the utility of all stakeholders at almost no price.

翻译：在双循环赛中，若某支队伍的最终排名不受剩余比赛结果影响，则该队伍可能缺乏获胜动力。本文提出一种分类方法，用于判定四队双循环赛中"弱无利害"（其中一队对结果无偏好）或"强无利害"（双方均无偏好）比赛。此类比赛出现的概率可作为新型公平性评判标准，用于比较和评估赛程安排。我们的方法以欧冠联赛小组赛为例进行说明。通过构建仿真模型，我们比较了小组赛的12种有效赛程，发现部分赛程明显劣于其他赛程。研究结果表明，最强队伍应在最后一轮主场作战，但不应对阵最弱队伍。依据所提出的指标选择最优比赛序列，可在几乎不增加成本的前提下提升所有利益相关方的效用。