The paper analyses two datasets of elite soccer players (top 1000 professionals and UEFA Under-19 Youth League). In both, we find a Relative Age Effect (RAE) for frequency, but not for value. That is, while there are more players born at the start of the competition year, their transfer values are no higher, nor are they given more game time. We use Poisson regression to derive a transparent index of the discrimination present in RAE. Also, because Poisson is valid for small frequency counts, it supports analysis at the disaggregated levels of country and club. From this, we conclude there are no paragon clubs or countries immune to RAE; that is clubs and countries do not differ systematically in the RAE they experience; also, that Poisson regression is a powerful and flexible method of analysing RAE data.
Like many sports in adolescence, junior hockey is organized by age groups. Typically, players born after December 31st are placed in the subsequent age cohort and as a result, will have an age advantage over those players born closer to the end of the year. While this relative age effect (RAE) has been well-established in junior hockey and other professional sports, the long-term impact of this phenomenon is not well understood. Using roster data on North American National Hockey League (NHL) pl...
We fi…nd an inverted relation between a player'’s birthday and the likelihood of receiving the Ballon d'’Or (awarded to the best football player in the world). We develop a multi-period skill formation model with selection into elite education. We show that those born late (underdogs) need to work harder to be selected for elite educational programs. However, those born too late will not make the cut-off. Those born late –– but not too late –– will thus end up with the highest skill levels as ad...
The Relative Age Effect (RAE) documents the inherent disadvantages of being younger rather than older in an age-banded cohort, typically a school- or competition-year, to the detriment of career-progression, earnings and wellbeing into adulthood. We develop the Tails of the Travelling Gaussian (TTG) to model the mechanisms behind RAE. TTG has notable advantages over existing approaches, which have been largely descriptive, potentially confounded, and non-comparable across contexts. In Study 1, u...
Using the modified Delphi method, we aimed to understand the attributes youth coaches and recruiters perceive as important when identifying skilled youth performance at the entry level of representative soccer in Australia (i.e., Under 13 years). Furthermore, we also aimed to describe the current methods youth coaches and recruiters use to assess and identify these attributes in youth players. Australian regional youth technical directors and coaches (n = 20) completed a three stage process, inc...
The relative age effect (RAE) has been highlighted extensively within literature as influencing selection and identification within sports. However, this initial bias appears to not be systemic in some talent development systems. Accordingly, we report an investigation into the initial identification, selection and conversion of academy players from professional Rugby Union and Cricket at national level. Reflecting previous studies, data again demonstrated a reversal of RAE advantage whereby rel...
Furley et al. (2016) recently reported that among the 100 most valuable soccer players, but not the 100 richest billionaires, individuals born in the first compared to the second half of the year were overrepresented (60 vs. 40%) and had higher estimated monetary value (EMV). The idea of testing whether birthdate-related selection cut-off dates are associated with players' EMV is attractive. Implications for people advocating equal chances of high sporting achievement might be suggested, provide...
ABSTRACTResearch Question(s): Talent selection is a stepping stone to sporting success at national and international levels. The research questions that guided this study were: (a) What is the decision-making (DM) process that coaches (as key selectors) use during talent selection? and (b) In what ways does awareness of the relative age effect (RAE) influence their DM?Research Methods: This study employed an action research approach in order to raise coach awareness of RAE on talent selection to...
Although people in general tend to attribute success to individual merit (see e.g., Gilbert and Malone, 1995) research has shown that something as trivial as the date of a person's birth can have—under certain circumstances—a major impact on an individual's achievement. The Canadian psychologist Roger Barnsley (Barnsley et al., 1985) made the extraordinary discovery that the great majority of top-level athletes were born within the first months of the year, whereas a lot less players playing at ...
Last. Stephen Cobley(USYD: University of Sydney)H-Index: 30
view all 6 authors...
The relative age effect (RAE) and its relationships with maturation, anthropometry, and physical performance characteristics were examined across a representative sample of English youth soccer development programmes. Birth dates of 1,212 players, chronologically age-grouped (i.e., U9’s-U18’s), representing 17 professional clubs (i.e., playing in Leagues 1 & 2) were obtained and categorised into relative age quartiles from the start of the selection year (Q1 = Sep-Nov; Q2 = Dec-Feb; Q3 = Mar-May...
In contrast to research on team-sports, delayed maturation has been observed in higher-skilled gymnasts, leading to atypical distributions of the relative age effect. Recent studies have reported intra-sport differences in the relative age effect and given the task demands across gymnastics apparatus, we expected to find evidence for the influence of apparatus specialism. We examined the presence of a relative age effects within a sample of elite, international, women's artistic gymnasts (N = 80...
Last. Oliver Höner(University of Tübingen)H-Index: 14
view all 6 authors...
Talent research has recommended that multidimensional assessments of performance are needed to improve the identification and development of talented young athletes. However, factors such as the relative age effect may cloud our ability to assess factors related to performance. The aim of this study was to determine the extent of any relationship between soccer players’ chronological and relative age and objective and subjective performance assessments. Data for highly talented male soccer playe...
Relative age effect is an aspect of relevance in sport in general and in handball in particular. It has been the subject of a great number of studies focused largely on men's sport. Studies on relative age in female handball are not so numerous, and do not clarify the effect of female handball on this sport. Therefore, the aim of this study was to establish the effect of relative age on elite handball players, as well as to assess this effect based on anthropometric variables, physical fitness a...
Athletes born late in the selection year are disadvantaged compared to the relatively older in youth age groups. This leads to an overrepresentation of the early-born in professional teams, which i...
In sports, outperforming your peers at young age does not guarantee a professional sports career as an adult. To gain more insight in how performance in youth cycling competitions can be an indicator for future success, the current study (a) examined differences in success rate between future achievers and future non-achievers, (b) investigated whether the relative age effect affects these career pathways, and (c) explored to what extent youth competitive performance can predict success at adult...
Bezuglov, E, Shvets, E, Lyubushkina, A, Lazarev, A, Valova, Y, Zholinsky, A, and Waśkiewicz, Z. Relative age effect in Russian elite hockey. J Strength Cond Res XX(X): 000-000, 2020-A considerable amount of literature has been published on relative age effect (RAE) in many sports; however, only a few studies have investigated this phenomenon in European elite ice hockey. The objective of this research was to study RAE prevalence in Russian elite ice hockey, which for years has been holding leadi...
Last. Barry Drust(University of Birmingham)H-Index: 62
view all 3 authors...
At the turn of the millennium, a review paper was published in this journal on talent identification and development in soccer (Williams & Reilly, 2000). In the current paper, we assess progress ma...
Last. Pablo Burillo(UEM: European University of Madrid)H-Index: 10
view all 4 authors...
The relative age effect (RAE) consists of the lower presence of members of an age group born in the months furthest from the age cut-off date established. In youth soccer, it is known that because of this effect the birth dates of more players in a team are closer to the cutoff of 1 January. These older players, due to their physical and psychological advantages, are more likely to be identified as talent. This study aimed to examine whether RAE can be identified in professional players of the t...
The aim of this paper is to analyse different interactions of the variables (age, position, or quality of the team and the league) and the crowdsourcing Transfermarkt values of male players in the top European leagues. All players (n = 2259) in the five most highly valued European leagues—Spain, England, Italy, France, and Germany—from the 2017/2018 season were included in this study. Data were retrieved from the open-source football database (Transfermarkt). The present economic value (VPRESENT...
The relative age effect (RAE) refers to the bias influence of birthdate distribution, with athletes born later in the selection year being under-represented in talent development systems. However, ...
