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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sports Act. Living
Sec. Elite Sports and Performance Enhancement
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fspor.2025.1546913
This article is part of the Research Topic 40 Years of Relative Age Effects in Sport: Lessons from the Past and Directions for the Future View all 17 articles
Born to Win? Investigating the Relative Age Effects in the Big Five European Women's Football Leagues
Provisionally accepted
Benito Pérez-González 1
Iyán Iván-Baragaño 2
José Bonal 2
Jairo León-Quismondo 2*
Álvaro Fernández-Luna 2
Pablo Burillo 2,3- 1 Faculty of Business and Communication, Universidad Internacional de La Rioja, Logroño, La Rioja, Spain
- 2 Department of Sports Sciences. Faculty of Medicine, Health and Sports. Universidad Europea de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
- 3 Real Madrid Graduate School, Faculty of Medicine, Health and Sports, Universidad Europea de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
This study examines the presence of the Relative Age Effects (RAEs) among players in the top five European women's football leagues during the 2023/24 season. A total of 1,634 professional players from the Women's Super League (England), Liga F (Spain), Frauen-Bundesliga (Germany), Serie A Femminile (Italy), and Division 1 Féminine (France) were analyzed. Birth date distributions were assessed to determine the prevalence of RAEs both collectively and within each league. Poisson regression analyses revealed a significant overall RAEs, with a higher proportion of players born in the first semester of the year. Individually, significant RAEs were found in England, Spain, Italy, and France, while Germany did not exhibit statistically significant effects. When analyzed by playing position, significant RAEs were observed among goalkeepers and midfielders, but not among defenders and forwards. These findings highlight the ongoing influence of RAEs in elite women's football and underscore the need for strategies to mitigate its impact on talent identification and player development.
Keywords: relative age effects, Soccer, talent identification, Birth date, development, maturation
Received: 17 Dec 2024; Accepted: 27 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Pérez-González, Iván-Baragaño, Bonal, León-Quismondo, Fernández-Luna and Burillo. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Jairo León-Quismondo, Department of Sports Sciences. Faculty of Medicine, Health and Sports. Universidad Europea de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
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