The double articulation of the relative age effect on Swedish football players

Abstract

In a study including all children born 1984 within the Swedish Football Association, the Relative Age Effect was documented on all levels of the selection systems. Even the selection of players who had been rejected by the selection system, but still became elite players, was influenced by Relative Age Effects. In 2009, at the age of 25, there were 61 Swedish elite players born 1984 (46 men and 15 women). 27 of them did not belong to the group of players picked by the selection system. Out of the individuals identified as future elite players by the selection system, half of the men and one fourth of the woman were not to belong to the “confirmed elite”. They were replaced in the elite football by individuals who had been rejected by the selection system, because of Relative Age Effects, and left to creating a carrier for themselves outside the system. These empirical findings suggest that the Swedish football elite is not created by the selection system, it is rather created in spite of it.