The relative age effect in a professional football club setting

The relative age effect in a professional football club setting

The relative age effect is an uneven distribution of birth date favouring subjects born in the initial months of a selection year. This study compared the birth-date distributions between several subgroups of Basque football players to identify whether the relative age effect is influenced by age an...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of sports sciences 2009-09, Vol.27 (11), p.1153-1158
Main Authors: Mujika, Iñigo, Vaeyens, Roel, Matthys, Stijn P.J., Santisteban, Juanma, Goiriena, Juan, Philippaerts, Renaat
Format: Article
Language:eng
Subjects:
Adolescent
Age
Age Factors
Athletes
Athletic Performance
Biological and medical sciences
Birth-date
Child
Follow-Up Studies
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Male
maturation
Men
Odds Ratio
Professional soccer
Skills
Soccer
talent identification
talent selection
Vertebrates: body movement. Posture. Locomotion. Flight. Swimming. Physical exercise. Rest. Sports
Young Adult
youth development
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Summary:The relative age effect is an uneven distribution of birth date favouring subjects born in the initial months of a selection year. This study compared the birth-date distributions between several subgroups of Basque football players to identify whether the relative age effect is influenced by age and/or skill level. The study comprised 13,519 players including 114 senior professionals from the Spanish league's AC Bilbao over 21 seasons; over the season 2005-2006, it comprised elite youth (n = 189) from the same club's academy; regional youth (n = 4382) U11-U14 locally federated players; school youth (n = 8834) U10-U11 locally registered school district players. Differences between the observed and expected birth-date distributions were tested based on data from the general Basque male population. Significant chi-square values were followed up by calculating odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for the quartile and half-year distributions to examine subgroup differences in the relative age effect. Birth-date distributions of all groups of players showed a significant bias towards early birth in the selection year compared with the reference population (senior, χ 2 3  = 24.4, P 
ISSN:0264-0414
1466-447X