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Journal of Sports Sciences
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The relative age effect in European professional
soccer: Did ten years of research make any difference?
Werner F. Helsen a , Joseph Baker b , Stijn Michiels a , Joerg Schorer c , Jan Van winckel a &
A. Mark Williams d
a Department of Biomedical Kinesiology, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
b Kinesiology and Health Science, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
c Institute for Sport Science, Westfälische Wilhelms-University Münster, Münster, Germany
d Centre for Sports Medicine and Human Performance, School of Sport and Education,
Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UB8 3PH, UK
Version of record first published: 24 Sep 2012.
To cite this article: Werner F. Helsen , Joseph Baker , Stijn Michiels , Joerg Schorer , Jan Van winckel & A. Mark Williams
(2012): The relative age effect in European professional soccer: Did ten years of research make any difference?, Journal of
Sports Sciences, 30:15, 1665-1671
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The relative age effect in European professional soccer: Did ten years of
research make any difference?
WERNER F. HELSEN
1
, JOSEPH BAKER
2
, STIJN MICHIELS
1
, JOERG SCHORER
3
,
JAN VAN WINCKEL
1
& A. MARK WILLIAMS
4
1
Department of Biomedical Kinesiology, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium,
2
Kinesiology and Health Science, York
University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada,
3
Institute for Sport Science, Westfa¨lische Wilhelms-University Mu¨nster, Mu¨nster,
Germany, and
4
Centre for Sports Medicine and Human Performance, School of Sport and Education, Brunel University,
Uxbridge, Middlesex UB8 3PH, UK
(Accepted 14 August 2012)
Abstract
The relative age effect (RAE) refers to an asymmetry in the birth-date distribution favouring players born early in the
selection year and discriminating against participants born later in the year. While the RAE effect was initially reported in
sport more than two decades ago, there have been few attempts to examine whether player selection strategies have changed
over time in light of our improved understanding of the phenomenon. We compared the birth-date distributions of
professional soccer players in ten European countries over a 10-year period involving the 2000–2001 and 2010–2011
competitive seasons, respectively. Chi-square goodness-of-fit tests were used to compare differences between the observed
and expected birth-date distributions across selection years. Generally, results indicated no change in the RAE over the past
10 years in professional soccer, emphasizing the robust nature of this phenomenon. We propose a change in the structure of
youth involvement in soccer to reduce the impact of the RAE on talent identification and selection.
Keywords: performance, talent identification, player selection, seasonal variation
Introduction
Participation in sports is the primary means by which
children maintain health and fitness as well as
maximise growth and development. In many sports,
participation is organised based on chronological age
(typically in one-year age categories) with the goal of
providing every child an equal chance to succeed
(Musch & Grondin, 2001). However, there can be
significant growth and maturational differences
amongst members of the same one-year cohort.
For example, if a sport uses 1 January as its ‘cut-off’
date for grouping youth, a child born in January may
have as long as a one year advantage or disadvantage
(e.g. for female gymnasts) compared with a child
born in December of the same calendar year. The
difference in age between children born in the same
year is referred to as ‘relative age’ (RA) (Barnsley &
Thompson, 1988; Barnsley, Thompson, & Legault,
1992) and their performance and participation
consequences (regardless of whether they are
relatively younger or older) are known as ‘relative
age effects’ (RAE) (Barnsley et al., 1992). For
example, researchers have revealed skewed birth-
date distributions in elite levels of performance
favouring individuals born early in the selection
year (Musch & Grondin, 2001; Vaeyens, Philip-
paerts, & Malina, 2005), presumably because their
growth and development is superior to children born
late in the selection year (Helsen, Van Winckel, &
Williams, 2005; Rummenich & Rogol, 1995).
With respect to talent identification and selection
in sport, differences in physical (Tanner & White-
house, 1976) and cognitive development (Bisanz,
Morrison, & Dunn, 1995) may affect the likelihood
of being identified as ‘talented’. Subsequently,
children selected for talent development pro-
grammes appear to have better capacities and more
intrinsic (observed competence) and extrinsic moti-
vation (appreciation of coaches and parents). This
increased motivation, together with the perceived
competence, stimulates these children to practice
Correspondence: Werner F. Helsen, Department of Biomedical Kinesiology, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Tervuursevest 101, Heverlee (Leuven), 3001
Belgium. Email: werner.helsen@faber.kuleuven.be
Journal of Sports Sciences, November 2012; 30(15): 1665–1671
ISSN 0264-0414 print/ISSN 1466-447X online Ó2012 Taylor & Francis
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02640414.2012.721929
Downloaded by [KU Leuven University Library] at 02:12 28 November 2012
more and further improve their skills (Helsen et al.,
2005; Shearer, 1967). This latter process leads to a
vicious circle where early-born children have an
increasing and persistent advantage over late-born
children both in school (Sharp, 1995) and in sport
(Helsen et al., 2005).
Musch and Grondin (2001) proposed that RAEs
only manifest themselves when a significant degree
of competition is present. In addition, and similar
to soccer, sports such as ice hockey (Grondin &
Trudeau, 1991), American football (Glamser & Mar-
ciani, 1990), baseball (Thompson, Barnsley, & Stebels-
ky, 1991), basketball (Delorme, Chalabaev, & Raspaud,
2010; Schorer, Neumann, Cobley, Tietjens, & Baker,
2011), cricket (Edwards, 1994), and tennis (Baxter-
Jones, 1995; Dudink, 1994) are breeding grounds for
RAEs because weight, height and strength are im-
portant in these sports. Sports such as gymnastics or
dance are less likely to show RAEs because movement
competency is more important and having a large body
size or mass may present a disadvantage to the athlete
(Delorme, Boiche, & Raspaud, 2010).
In both professional and youth soccer, the RAE
has been a research topic since the early 1990s.
Dudink (1994) noted very strong RAEs in profes-
sional soccer in the Netherlands and England (see also
Verhulst, 1992). Similarly, Helsen et al. (2005) noted
RAEs in international youth teams (i.e. under 15 to
under 18 years of age) reflecting a disproportionate
number of relatively older players. Likewise, Jime´nez
and Pain (2008) found a RAE in first and second
divisions in Spain as well as in youth soccer. A strong
RAE was also found in non-European countries
(Japan, Brazil and Australia) suggesting that the
phenomenon is present in a variety of climatic and
socio-cultural environments and is independent of
different cut-off dates (Musch & Hay, 1999).
Researchers have also considered this effect over
time. Cobley, Schorer and Baker (2008) found a
skewed distribution across the history of the Bunde-
sliga in Germany, both for players and coaches.
Historically, there were no decreases in the last
decades for ice-hockey (Wattie et al., 2007) or soccer
in Germany (Cobley et al., 2008). However,
considering the increased effort put into research
on this topic over the last two decades, this trend
might have been reversed in some countries. As
Helsen and others have proposed (Barnsley et al.,
1992; Boucher & Halliwell, 1991; Helsen, Starkes, &
Van Winckel, 2000; Helsen et al., 2005; Musch &
Grondin, 2001), raising awareness of the negative
impact of this phenomenon through coach education
should be part of the solution. In Germany, for
example, an article advocating action was recently
published in a journal read by many coaches (Lames,
Augste, Dreckmann, Go¨rsdorf, & Schimanski,
2008). In the same way, the soccer federation in
Belgium created U16-F and U17-F ‘future’ teams in
addition to the regular U16 and U17 teams. These
future teams mainly consist of ‘late maturers’.
With respect to the impact of time on the
manifestation of the RAE, there are two viable
hypotheses. The first one holds that the RAE would
have decreased over the last decade based on the
considerable increase in research in this area
accompanied with the various solutions proposed
to reduce its impact. The second hypothesis predicts
that the RAE did not decrease at all over the course
of the past ten years, and may even have increased
slightly over this time. The main reason is that in the
2000–2001 competitive season players were exposed
to a different cut-off date in school than in the sport
club. Before 1997, the sport selection year started in
August, while the education year started in January,
whereas since 1997 the selection periods for both
education and sport in every country start in January.
An exception is England, where both selection periods
start in September. As a result, players in the 2010–
2011 competitive season were exposed to the same
cut-off date for education and sport during their player
development, which may have increased the effect.
Our main aim in this paper was to examine the birth-
date distributions in prominent soccer competitions
across Europe over two seasons a decade apart (i.e.
2000–2001 and 2010–2011) to examine whether the
magnitude of the effect has changed over time.
Methods
Participants
The birth-date distributions from all professional
players in the 2000–2001 and 2010–2011 competi-
tive seasons were examined. Table I provides an
Table I. Overview of the number and percentage home country
players and foreigners in the 2000-2001 and 2010-2011 compe-
titive seasons.
Country Players
Total (N)
% Home
country % Foreigners
2000 2010 2000 2010 2000 2010
England 596 565 53.7 40.7 47.3 59.3
Portugal 432 428 56.0 44.2 44.0 55.8
Germany 511 535 57.3 52.7 42.7 47.3
Belgium 442 407 61.1 49.4 38.9 50.6
Netherlands 450 446 65.1 59.2 34.9 40.8
Spain 486 490 65.6 64.3 34.4 35.7
France 473 535 71.9 60.0 28.1 40.0
Italy 496 558 64.9 57.3 35.1 42.7
Denmark 319 285 86.5 73.3 13.5 26.7
Sweden 470 412 94.0 74.0 6.0 26.0
Total 4675 4661 66.5 56.6 33.5 43.4
1666 W.F. Helsen et al.
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overview of the number of players in the specific
countries examined. Engebretsen et al. (2010) noted
that births in some countries are not registered until
school starts, leading to uncertainty about the
validity of these data. Therefore, only home country
players were used to test for significant differences.
Procedure
First, birth-date data from players competing in both
the 2000–2001 and 2010–2011 competitive seasons
were collected from the official sites of the clubs.
These data were checked with resources from the
governing bodies. Subsequently, the number of
players born per month and per quarter-year was
acquired. In line with previous work (Helsen,
Starkes, & Van Winckel, 1998; Helsen et al.,
2005), August was coded as ‘month 1’ and July as
‘month 12’ for the 2000–2001 season because, until
1997, the start of the selection year was 1 August,
except for England. Following the guidelines of the
Fe´de´ration Internationale de Football Association
(FIFA), the national associations have used 1
January as the start of the selection year since 1997.
As such, the change in cut-off date was considered to
have no impact as the players from the 2000–2001
season were all subjected to the same cut-off date
throughout their participation in the various youth
categories. For the 2010–2011 season, however,
January was coded as ‘month 1’ and December as
‘month 12’, except for England where the start of the
selection year was still 1 September.
Data analysis
For the comparison of quartiles, Chi-square good-
ness-of-fit tests were used to compare differences
between the observed and expected birth-date
distributions across the quarters of the selection
year. This procedure was first undertaken for both
distributions of 2000–2001 and 2010–2011 sepa-
rately. Additionally, we compared the distribution of
the 2000–2001 season with the distribution of the
2010–2011 season using Chi-square tests. We report
the effect size (w) and, if applicable, the test power
(1–b; Fald, Erdfelder, Lang, Buchner, 2007). For
each of these tests, the level of significance was set at
P50.05.
Results
Composition of professional leagues
While the number of players in the ten leagues
investigated did not differ, on average, the percen-
tage of home country players decreased from 66.5%
in the 2000–2001 competitive season to 56.6% in the
2010–2011 competitive season, while the percentage
of foreigners increased from 33.5% to 43.4%,
respectively (see Table I).
When we considered each country separately, only
four countries showed less than the approximate
10% increase in foreign players: Germany; the
Netherlands; Spain; and Italy. The highest increase
was noted for Sweden with 20% of foreign-born
players compared with 6% in 2000–2001.
Relative age effects
Figure 1 presents the total quartile distribution from
2000–2001 to 2010–2011, and reflects the skewed
distribution with the greater number of players
coming from the beginning of the selection year
and a decrease in the number of players born later in
the selection year. As expected, there were significant
relative age effects for the season 2000–2001, w(3,
n¼3111) ¼61.07, P50.01, w¼0.14, as well as
for the season 2010–2011, w(3, n¼2636) ¼85.34,
P50.01, w¼0.18. When the relative percentage
of home country players is considered, this effect
appears stronger in the 2010–2011 season compared
with the 2000–2001 season. Comparative analysis of
both distributions revealed a significant increase in
this effect from season 2000–2001 to 2010–2011,
w(3, n¼5747) ¼19.67, P50.05, w¼0.06.
Table II shows the birth-quartile distributions of
the home country professional players in the 2000–
2001 and 2010–2011 competitive seasons from the
same ten European countries.
For the 2000–2001 competitive season, most of
the birth-date distributions are asymmetric, as
revealed by the results of the statistical analysis,
except for Portugal and Spain. In a few countries, the
RAE results approached conventional levels of
significance (the Netherlands and Sweden). The
most significant effect was found in France. Out of a
Figure 1.Comparison between the relative birth-date distribution
of professional players in the 2000–2001 and 2010–2011
competitive seasons.
Relative age in professional soccer 1667
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total of 340 players, there were 117 professional
players born in the first quarter and only 61 players
in the last quarter. Overall, it is clear that there is an
overrepresentation of players born in the first quarter
of the selection year and an underrepresentation of
players born in the last quarter of the selection year.
Comparable results were found for the 2010–2011
competitive season. Asymmetric birth-date distribu-
tions were found in all countries, except in Portugal.
The greatest asymmetry was observed in Sweden
where, out of a total of 305 players, 118 players were
born in the first quarter and only 46 players in the
last quarter. Overall, there is an overrepresentation of
players born in the first quarter of the selection year
and an underrepresentation of players born late in
the selection year.
In a last step, we compared the birth-quartile
distributions of the 2000–2001 and the 2010–2011
seasons. As can be seen in Table III, significant
differences between these distributions with an
increasing RAE were revealed for Belgium, Den-
mark, England, Germany, Spain and Sweden. Only
non-significant changes in the distributions were
found for France, Italy, Portugal and the
Netherlands.
Discussion
In line with previous studies examining the RAE in
soccer in Germany (Cobley et al., 2008) and in Spain
(Jime´nez & Pain, 2008), the birth-date distributions
of professional soccer players in ten European
countries were examined. We compared the birth
date distributions among professional players in the
2000–2001 and 2010–2011 competitive seasons. In
the 2000–2001 competitive season, all countries,
with the exceptions of Portugal and Spain, showed a
significant relative age effect. In the 2010–2011
season, only Portugal did not show a RAE.
There has been no decrease in the prevalence of
the RAE during the last decade. The birth-date
distribution of the 2010–2011 competitive season
shows that 31.9% of the players were born in the first
quarter of the selection year and 18.4% were born in
the last quarter of the selection year, compared with
29.3% and 19.8% respectively in the 2000–2001
season. These data suggest that despite solutions
being proposed in the literature there has been little
impact on the effect. Conversely, Spain showed no
RAE in the 2000–2001 competitive season, whereas
a significant effect was noted in the 2010–2011
competitive season (c.f. Jime´nez & Pain, 2008).
Previously, researchers have suggested that the
existence of, and possibly increase in, prevalence of
the RAE in soccer is driven by three mechanisms
(Helsen et al., 1998). First, children receive more
playing time as a result of a developmental advantage
Table II. Overview of the birth quartile distribution of home country players in ten European countries in the 2000–2001 and 2010–2011 competitive seasons.
2000/01 2010/11
NQ1 Q2 Q3 Q4 X
2
pw1–bNQ1 Q2 Q3 Q4 X
2
pw1–b
England* 314 33.1 22.9 23.3 20.7 13.6 50.05 0.20 230 29.6 32.2 21.7 16.5 18.6 50.05 0.28
Portugal 242 24.4 28.1 28.1 19.4 4.0 n.s. 0.13 0.36 189 24.9 27.5 27.5 20.1 2.3 n.s. 0.11 0.21
Germany 293 31.4 25.9 22.5 20.1 8.3 50.05 0.17 282 36.5 19.9 26.2 17.4 23.3 50.05 0.28
Belgium 270 30.7 20.7 21.1 27.4 10.2 50.05 0.19 201 29.9 32.8 17.4 19.9 13.4 50.05 0.26
Netherland 293 28.3 27.0 24.9 19.8 4.0 n.s. 0.12 0.35 264 27.3 30.3 25.0 17.4 8.0 50.05 0.17
Spain 319 25.9 24.8 27.3 22.0 1.9 n.s. 0.08 0.19 315 32.7 27.0 24.1 16.2 20.4 50.05 0.25
France 340 34.5 25.0 22.6 18.1 22.6 50.05 0.26 321 34.0 25.2 25.2 15.6 23.5 50.05 0.27
Italy 322 29.5 28.0 26.4 16.1 13.9 50.05 0.21 320 29.1 30.6 22.5 17.8 13.5 50.05 0.20
Denmark 276 25.4 33.3 25.0 16.3 11.0 50.05 0.20 209 32.1 27.3 23.9 16.7 9.1 50.05 0.21
Sweden 442 28.7 27.1 23.8 20.4 1.2 n.s. 0.05 0.13 305 38.7 22.9 23.3 15.1 24.6 50.05 0.28
Total 3111 29.3 26.5 24.5 19.8 58.9 50.05 0.14 2636 31.9 26.1 23.6 18.4 101.9 50.05 0.20
*Start of the selection year: September
1668 W.F. Helsen et al.
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rather than their level of proficiency. A related issue
is that youth soccer players are organised into two-
year age categories, which may place greater signifi-
cance on the importance of developmental differences
between children. Players born in the first quarter of
the selection period are chronologically older than
their later born teammates, which may lead to a
difference in strength, height, weight and coordina-
tion (Barnsley et al., 1992), characteristics that are
highly variable before and during puberty. Second,
Ward and Williams (2003) proposed that early born
children have better technical skills and more tactical
insight due to more experience as a result of earlier
exposure to practice and competition (see also Helsen
et al., 1998; Ward, Hodges, Williams, & Starkes,
2004). Finally, players are exposed much earlier to
competition in soccer than in many other domains
(Helsen et al., 2005), which promotes the identifica-
tion and selection of talent at early stages of
development. Musch and Grondin (2001) proposed
that intense competition is a fundamental element
underpinning the RAE in sports.
We hypothesized that the RAE would have
decreased over the last decade based of increased
awareness fostered by the considerable increase in
published research on this topic, accompanied with
the various solutions proposed to reduce its impact.
However, the prevalence of the RAE does not seem
to have decreased over the course of the past ten
years; on the contrary, there is some evidence that it
may have increased slightly over this time. Although
the precise reason for the lack of change is difficult to
discern, one specific change that occurred may have
had some influence. In the 2000–2001 competitive
season, players were exposed to a different cut-off
date in education. Before 1997, the sport selection
year started in August while the education year
started in January. Since 1997, the selection periods
for both education and sport in most countries start
in January. As a result, players in the 2010–2011
competitive season were exposed to the same cut-off
date for education and sport during their player
development. This may have had a greater impact on
the RAE than has been considered until now.
Given that our analyses show no reduction in the
effect over the past 10 years, more proactive
measures are required by researchers and sport
administrators. A number of publications (Barnsley
et al. 1992; Helsen et al., 1998, 2005; Helsen,
Hodges, Van Winckel, & Starkes, 2000; Musch &
Grondin, 2001) have proposed a range of options to
eliminate the RAE (see Cobley, Wattie, Baker, &
McKenna, 2009). In their review, Musch and
Grondin (2001) differentiate between classification
systems based on biological age, chronological age,
multiple squads based on multiple standards, and
warning practitioners. In many sports, classification
systems based on biological age are difficult to
organise, and consequently alternative solutions
based on chronological age should be considered.
For instance, every year the cut-off date could be
shifted to give each child the opportunity to be the
oldest in their age category (Barnsley et al., 1992;
Boucher & Halliwell, 1991; Helsen, Starkes, & Van
Winckel, 2000, Helsen et al., 2005; Musch &
Grondin, 2001). In individual sports, for example,
cut-off dates can be determined differently for each
competition. In swimming there is no fixed cut-off
date. According to Ryan (1989), this can prevent
RAEs if the accumulation of key competitions are
not all scheduled in specific months each year.
Unfortunately, this age-grouping system in swim-
ming is not applicable in team sports. When the
age categories are limited to 9 (Boucher &
Halliwell, 1991), 15 or 21 months (Grondin,
Deshaies & Nault, 1984), the cut-off date will
automatically change with the consequence that
every child has the advantage of being the oldest in
a cohort.
Rotating the cut-off date is a relatively simple,
structural solution that could be easily used by the
governing bodies. As it has not yet been presented in
soccer, we illustrate below how a change from the
current grouping system to a system with a 21-month
Table III. Difference in birth quartile distribution between 2000–2001 and 2010–2011 seasons.
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 X
2
pw1–b
England 3.5 79.3 1.6 4.2 27.8 5.05 0.23
Portugal 70.5 0.6 0.6 70.7 0.3 n.s. 0.02 0.06
Germany 75.1 6.0 73.7 2.7 18.5 5.05 0.18
Belgium 0.8 712.1 3.7 7.5 46.4 5.05 0.31
Netherlands 1.0 73.3 70.1 2.4 4.1 n.s. 0.08 0.37
Spain 76.8 72.2 3.2 5.8 24.6 5.05 0.20
France 0.5 70.2 72.6 2.5 4.0 n.s. 0.08 0.35
Italy 0.4 72.6 3.9 71.7 6.4 n.s. 0.10 0.55
Denmark 76.7 6.0 1.1 70.4 14.1 5.05 0.17
Sweden 710.0 4.2 0.5 5.3 41.2 5.05 0.23
Total 72.6 0.4 0.9 1.4 20.4 5.05 0.05
Relative age in professional soccer 1669
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rotating cut-off date might affect players within the
U10, U12, U14 and U16 age categories (Table IV).
Table IV shows the impact of a rotating cut-off
date compared with the current system where
children born in the same year are grouped together
throughout development. In the proposed grouping
system, children born in the same calendar year are
not necessarily grouped together. This new system
results in several important changes. First, the cut-off
date changes in each category and has the conse-
quence of each child being the oldest one in his age
category for a specific time period. Second, each
category only has seven quarters with the conse-
quence of fewer children in each age category. Third,
the oldest U16 is 15 years old, whereas in the old
system the oldest U16 was 16 years old. This change
means that children will move on to the next
category one year earlier than in the old system.
Finally, moving on to the next category does not
happen with the same birth cohort. As a consequence
of this change, two players who play together in one
season, do not play together in the next season;
however, they may still be in the same class in school.
Since 1997, the cut-off date at school has been the
same as in the sports clubs in many countries.
Specifically, this means that the same children are
among the oldest both in school and club and,
therefore, systematically advantaged while the ones
born at the end of the year are systematically
disadvantaged whenever they go to school or
participate in a sports club. While this was certainly
not intentional when FIFA moved the cut-off date
from August to January, the impact is clear. In future
studies, researchers should examine to what extent
the use of rotating cut-off dates may structurally
solve the persistent inequalities that are associated
with the RAE in talent detection and selection in
high-performance sport.
Table IV. Overview of a grouping system with 21 months for soccer, season X. The numbers between brackets indicate the age of the players.
Thanks to the rotating cut-off date, each birth quarter is now being advantaged. The different colours indicate different birth cohorts. The
names of the age categories are named the same as in table 7.
Categories:Quarters: U10 U12 U14 U16
1. Most advantaged
players
April (10)
May (10)
June (10)
July (12)
August (12)
September (12)
October (14)
November (14)
December (14)
January (15)
February (15)
March (15)
2. July (10)
August (10)
September (10)
October (12)
November (12)
December (12)
January (13)
February (13)
March (13)
April (15)
May (15)
June (15)
3. October (10)
November (10)
December (10)
January (11)
February (11)
March (11)
April (13)
May (13)
June (13)
July (15)
August (15)
September (15)
4. January (9)
February (9)
March (9)
April (11)
May (11)
June (11)
July (13)
August (13)
September (13)
October (15)
November (15)
December (15)
5. April (9)
May (9)
June (9)
July (11)
August (11)
September (11)
October (13)
November (13)
December (13)
January (14)
February (14)
March (14)
6. July (9)
August (9)
September (9)
October (11)
November (11)
December (11)
January (12)
February (12)
March (12)
April (14)
May (14)
June (14)
7. Most disadvantaged
players
October (9)
November (9)
December (9)
January (10)
February (10)
March (10)
April (12)
May (12)
June (12)
July (14)
August (14)
September (14)
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