Youth Training Programs and their Impact on Career and Spell Duration of Professional Soccer Players

Marcel Voia and Mihailo Radoman ()
Additional contact information
Mihailo Radoman: Department of Economics, Carleton University

No 13-01, Carleton Economic Papers from Carleton University, Department of Economics

Abstract: A unique data set of post-war English trained soccer players that signed professionally with their parent club when they turned 18 is used to study the impact of their stay with the home team and their total career duration. The home team (first) spell and career durations of these soccer players in a top European leagues is modeled using robust hazard models. The results of the analysis show that players that start their professional careers after acquiring training in competitive youth academy/programs have different outcomes on their career and first spell duration depending on the clubs they start their training. The first spell duration analysis is performed to estimate the bond or loyalty factor established by clubs with their youth trainees. The spell analysis outlines the nature of the competitive environment in which smaller clubs have a chance to keep up with the larger ones in terms of producing and holding on to home-grown talent. This would be a necessary condition for them to remain competitive in light of their lagging financial resources that limit their activity and ability to attract top talent in the soccer transfer market. The analysis of career duration in the top European leagues will show the success of a specifc academy's training programs in producing players competitive in top soccer leagues. Finally, the results of both analyses were tested for endogeneity bias using a split sample test.

Keywords: career duration of soccer players; youth training programs; duration models; model evaluation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C14 C41 C52 J24 J44 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 52 pages
Date: 2013-01-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-knm and nep-spo
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published: Carleton Economic Papers

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.carleton.ca/economics/wp-content/uploads/cep13-01.pdf

Related works:
Journal Article: Youth Training Programs and Their Impact on Career and Spell Duration of Professional Soccer Players (2015)
Working Paper: Youth Training Programs and Their Impact on Career and Spell Duration of Professional Soccer Players (2015)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:car:carecp:13-01

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Carleton Economic Papers from Carleton University, Department of Economics C870 Loeb Building, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa Ontario, K1S 5B6 Canada.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Court Lindsay ().