ArticleFrontiers in sports and active living2021
Premature Professionalisation or Early Engagement? Examining Practise in Football Player Pathways.
Article in Frontiers in sports and active living, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Cardiac evaluation of paediatric athletes.European heart journal · 2026Guideline
- Training characteristics of professional development activities in elite football players: a systematic review.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Pooled it
- Understanding significant experiences of adolescent athletes' participation in competitive sports life: a systematic review.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2025Pooled it
- Evidence-Based Insights for the Development and Talent Promotion of Young Athletes in a National Sports Context.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2026Article
- The fine line between deliberate play and deliberate practice within talent development in grassroots football: evidence from a one-year longitudinal case study.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2026Article
- Understanding Longitudinal Muscle Injury Trends in Youth Football: Insights from U9 to U13 Players.Sports (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Article
- The school of hard knocks: systemic violence and the motivation to harm in boys' youth academy football.Frontiers in sociology · 2025Article
- Biological maturity vs. relative age: Independent impact on physical performance in male and female youth handball players.Biology of sport · 2024Article
- Case Report: Effect of providing penalty kicking tendencies on goalkeeper's motor behaviour and performance: a case study with an on-field intervention on youth football.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2024Article
- Is There Just One Type of Multisport Pathway? A Scoping Review of Multisport Engagement in Early Athlete Development.Sports medicine - open · 2023Article
- Push and Pull Factors: Contextualising Biological Maturation and Relative Age in Talent Development Systems.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- What makes a Grand Slam champion? Early engagement, late specialization and timely transition from having fun to dedication.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2023Article
- The Irish Football Player Pathway: Examining Stakeholder Coherence Throughout and Across the Player Development System.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
There is a growing debate, both in the academic and sporting worlds, about the most appropriate pathway for high potential young players in sport. In this regard, there has been a considerable focus on the age of selection into structured talent development pathways and the nature of the experience once players have been recruited. Given the economic and reputational currency associated with developing professional footballers in particular, it is unsurprising that professional football clubs continue to invest significant financial resources into their academy structures. Understandably, this recruitment policy has attracted substantial attention within the media and research community, with ethical concerns arising surrounding the impact early selection may have on the welfare and the experiences of the young players within the pathway. The aim of this perspective article was to critically consider the research underpinning the early engagement practises of football clubs and the extent to which, and how, the pathway can provide players with the most appropriate starting point for their development. This evidence points to the need to look beyond the prevalent 'early specialisation vs. diversification' debate in youth sport towards a consideration of an early engagement perspective that reflects the biopsychosocial influences on talent development and the socio-political environment that influences decisions. We provide practical recommendations focused on the quality of the early engagement experience.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.