  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 against one of the middle teams, depending on the preferences of
the tournament organiser. Choosing an optimal sequence of matches with respect
to the proposed metric can help to avoid uninteresting matches.
