The Relative Age Effect in the 2013 FIFA U-17 Soccer World Cup Competition

Ridha Sallaoui; Karim Chamari; Moktar Chtara; Youssef Manai; Mourad Ghrairi; Mohcine Belhaouz; Abdullah Baroon

doi:doi:10.11648/j.ajss.20140202.15

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The Relative Age Effect in the 2013 FIFA U-17 Soccer World Cup Competition

Ridha Sallaoui, Karim Chamari, Moktar Chtara, Youssef Manai, Mourad Ghrairi, Mohcine Belhaouz, Abdullah Baroon

Published in American Journal of Sports Science (Volume 2, Issue 2)

Received: 12 February 2014 Accepted: Published: 20 March 2014

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Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to check the eventual existence of any Relative Age Effect (RAE) in the recent 2013’ FIFA Male Under-17 (U-17) World Cup Football tournament. The data pertaining to the players who participated in to that event were collected from the FIFA website. They included the players’ dates of birth (day, month and year) and position (goalkeeper, defender, midfielder or striker).The distributions of birth months were significantly different with more players born in the early months of the year compared with the later months. For the entire cohort of players, 38.7% were born in the first quarter of the year while only 10.5% were born in the last 3 months in the same year. This relative age effect held for all FIFA-designated teams except for the Nigeria and the Côte d'Ivoire having shown a reverse relative age effect. The results of this investigation show that at the highest level of youth soccer, the RAE still exists and is a strong bias toward inclusion of players born early in the concerned year.

Published in	American Journal of Sports Science (Volume 2, Issue 2)
DOI	10.11648/j.ajss.20140202.15
Page(s)	35-40
Creative Commons	This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright	Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Youth Soccer, Reverse Relative Age Effect, Birth-Date

References

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APA Style

Ridha Sallaoui, Karim Chamari, Moktar Chtara, Youssef Manai, Mourad Ghrairi, et al. (2014). The Relative Age Effect in the 2013 FIFA U-17 Soccer World Cup Competition. American Journal of Sports Science, 2(2), 35-40. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajss.20140202.15

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ACS Style

Ridha Sallaoui; Karim Chamari; Moktar Chtara; Youssef Manai; Mourad Ghrairi, et al. The Relative Age Effect in the 2013 FIFA U-17 Soccer World Cup Competition. Am. J. Sports Sci. 2014, 2(2), 35-40. doi: 10.11648/j.ajss.20140202.15

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AMA Style

Ridha Sallaoui, Karim Chamari, Moktar Chtara, Youssef Manai, Mourad Ghrairi, et al. The Relative Age Effect in the 2013 FIFA U-17 Soccer World Cup Competition. Am J Sports Sci. 2014;2(2):35-40. doi: 10.11648/j.ajss.20140202.15

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@article{10.11648/j.ajss.20140202.15,
  author = {Ridha Sallaoui and Karim Chamari and Moktar Chtara and Youssef Manai and Mourad Ghrairi and Mohcine Belhaouz and Abdullah Baroon},
  title = {The Relative Age Effect in the 2013 FIFA U-17 Soccer World Cup Competition},
  journal = {American Journal of Sports Science},
  volume = {2},
  number = {2},
  pages = {35-40},
  doi = {10.11648/j.ajss.20140202.15},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajss.20140202.15},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ajss.20140202.15},
  abstract = {Purpose: The purpose of this study was to check the eventual existence of any Relative Age Effect (RAE) in the recent 2013’ FIFA Male Under-17 (U-17) World Cup Football tournament. The data pertaining to the players who participated in to that event were collected from the FIFA website. They included the players’ dates of birth (day, month and year) and position (goalkeeper, defender, midfielder or striker).The distributions of birth months were significantly different with more players born in the early months of the year compared with the later months. For the entire cohort of players, 38.7% were born in the first quarter of the year while only 10.5% were born in the last 3 months in the same year. This relative age effect held for all FIFA-designated teams except for the Nigeria and the Côte d'Ivoire having shown a reverse relative age effect. The results of this investigation show that at the highest level of youth soccer, the RAE still exists and is a strong bias toward inclusion of players born early in the concerned year.},
 year = {2014}
}

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TY  - JOUR
T1  - The Relative Age Effect in the 2013 FIFA U-17 Soccer World Cup Competition
AU  - Ridha Sallaoui
AU  - Karim Chamari
AU  - Moktar Chtara
AU  - Youssef Manai
AU  - Mourad Ghrairi
AU  - Mohcine Belhaouz
AU  - Abdullah Baroon
Y1  - 2014/03/20
PY  - 2014
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajss.20140202.15
DO  - 10.11648/j.ajss.20140202.15
T2  - American Journal of Sports Science
JF  - American Journal of Sports Science
JO  - American Journal of Sports Science
SP  - 35
EP  - 40
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2330-8540
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajss.20140202.15
AB  - Purpose: The purpose of this study was to check the eventual existence of any Relative Age Effect (RAE) in the recent 2013’ FIFA Male Under-17 (U-17) World Cup Football tournament. The data pertaining to the players who participated in to that event were collected from the FIFA website. They included the players’ dates of birth (day, month and year) and position (goalkeeper, defender, midfielder or striker).The distributions of birth months were significantly different with more players born in the early months of the year compared with the later months. For the entire cohort of players, 38.7% were born in the first quarter of the year while only 10.5% were born in the last 3 months in the same year. This relative age effect held for all FIFA-designated teams except for the Nigeria and the Côte d'Ivoire having shown a reverse relative age effect. The results of this investigation show that at the highest level of youth soccer, the RAE still exists and is a strong bias toward inclusion of players born early in the concerned year.
VL  - 2
IS  - 2
ER  -

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Author Information

Ridha Sallaoui

Alahli Sports Club of Dubai, Dubai, United Arab Emirates; UAE Football Association, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Karim Chamari

Athete Health and Performance Research Center, Aspetar, Doha, Qatar
Moktar Chtara

National Center of Medicine and Sciences in Sports, Tunisia
Youssef Manai

Alahli Sports Club of Dubai, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Mourad Ghrairi

UAE Football Association, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Mohcine Belhaouz

UAE Football Association, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Abdullah Baroon

UAE Football Association, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

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APA Style

Ridha Sallaoui, Karim Chamari, Moktar Chtara, Youssef Manai, Mourad Ghrairi, et al. (2014). The Relative Age Effect in the 2013 FIFA U-17 Soccer World Cup Competition. American Journal of Sports Science, 2(2), 35-40. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajss.20140202.15

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ACS Style

Ridha Sallaoui; Karim Chamari; Moktar Chtara; Youssef Manai; Mourad Ghrairi, et al. The Relative Age Effect in the 2013 FIFA U-17 Soccer World Cup Competition. Am. J. Sports Sci. 2014, 2(2), 35-40. doi: 10.11648/j.ajss.20140202.15

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AMA Style

Ridha Sallaoui, Karim Chamari, Moktar Chtara, Youssef Manai, Mourad Ghrairi, et al. The Relative Age Effect in the 2013 FIFA U-17 Soccer World Cup Competition. Am J Sports Sci. 2014;2(2):35-40. doi: 10.11648/j.ajss.20140202.15

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@article{10.11648/j.ajss.20140202.15,
  author = {Ridha Sallaoui and Karim Chamari and Moktar Chtara and Youssef Manai and Mourad Ghrairi and Mohcine Belhaouz and Abdullah Baroon},
  title = {The Relative Age Effect in the 2013 FIFA U-17 Soccer World Cup Competition},
  journal = {American Journal of Sports Science},
  volume = {2},
  number = {2},
  pages = {35-40},
  doi = {10.11648/j.ajss.20140202.15},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajss.20140202.15},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ajss.20140202.15},
  abstract = {Purpose: The purpose of this study was to check the eventual existence of any Relative Age Effect (RAE) in the recent 2013’ FIFA Male Under-17 (U-17) World Cup Football tournament. The data pertaining to the players who participated in to that event were collected from the FIFA website. They included the players’ dates of birth (day, month and year) and position (goalkeeper, defender, midfielder or striker).The distributions of birth months were significantly different with more players born in the early months of the year compared with the later months. For the entire cohort of players, 38.7% were born in the first quarter of the year while only 10.5% were born in the last 3 months in the same year. This relative age effect held for all FIFA-designated teams except for the Nigeria and the Côte d'Ivoire having shown a reverse relative age effect. The results of this investigation show that at the highest level of youth soccer, the RAE still exists and is a strong bias toward inclusion of players born early in the concerned year.},
 year = {2014}
}

Copy | Download

TY  - JOUR
T1  - The Relative Age Effect in the 2013 FIFA U-17 Soccer World Cup Competition
AU  - Ridha Sallaoui
AU  - Karim Chamari
AU  - Moktar Chtara
AU  - Youssef Manai
AU  - Mourad Ghrairi
AU  - Mohcine Belhaouz
AU  - Abdullah Baroon
Y1  - 2014/03/20
PY  - 2014
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajss.20140202.15
DO  - 10.11648/j.ajss.20140202.15
T2  - American Journal of Sports Science
JF  - American Journal of Sports Science
JO  - American Journal of Sports Science
SP  - 35
EP  - 40
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2330-8540
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajss.20140202.15
AB  - Purpose: The purpose of this study was to check the eventual existence of any Relative Age Effect (RAE) in the recent 2013’ FIFA Male Under-17 (U-17) World Cup Football tournament. The data pertaining to the players who participated in to that event were collected from the FIFA website. They included the players’ dates of birth (day, month and year) and position (goalkeeper, defender, midfielder or striker).The distributions of birth months were significantly different with more players born in the early months of the year compared with the later months. For the entire cohort of players, 38.7% were born in the first quarter of the year while only 10.5% were born in the last 3 months in the same year. This relative age effect held for all FIFA-designated teams except for the Nigeria and the Côte d'Ivoire having shown a reverse relative age effect. The results of this investigation show that at the highest level of youth soccer, the RAE still exists and is a strong bias toward inclusion of players born early in the concerned year.
VL  - 2
IS  - 2
ER  -

Copy | Download