The Royal Netherlands Football Association (KNVB) relative age solutions project-part two: an adapted e-Delphi study

Following the lack of widely implemented interventions to mitigate Relative Age Effects (RAEs) in sports, the Royal Netherlands Football Association (KNVB) called on stakeholders to propose relative age solutions in youth soccer (Part One). This initial study yielded 13 lower-order potential solutions, many of which remain hypothetical. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate these solutions to overcome RAEs in youth soccer using a two-round adapted e-Delphi study.

Fifteen international experts, including both researchers and practitioners, rated (out of 9) each solution on how likely it is to directly and indirectly mitigate RAEs (Round 1) and how feasible it is to implement (Round 2).

Findings indicated that "rotating cut-off dates" was perceived as the most effective solution to mitigate direct and indirect RAEs (6.2 ± 1.6), although it was not rated particularly feasible (4.6 ± 2.5). In comparison, while "cueing differences in age" was perceived as the most feasible solution (6.7 ± 2.1), it was deemed less useful for mitigating RAEs (5.2 ± 2.3). Taken together, "cueing differences in age" was considered the most viable solution across both rounds (5.8 ± 2.3).

Interestingly, highly rated solutions perceived to effectively moderate RAEs were generally expected to be more challenging to implement. Results also showed regular disagreement amongst the international experts, highlighting that creating consensus on possible relative age solutions may be difficult to achieve in youth soccer. Moving forward, the highest rated solutions should be designed, implemented, and evaluated based on their effectiveness and feasibility in practice.