Jensen’s problem of governance revisited by the relative age effect on spanish football

• Autores: Jose Torres Pruñonosa, Pablo Burillo , Álvaro Fernández Luna , Benito Pérez González
• Localización: Cultura, ciencia y deporte, ISSN 1696-5043, Vol. 20, Nº. 66, 2025
• Idioma: inglés
• Títulos paralelos:
  • El problema de gobernanza de Jensen revisitado por el efecto de la edad relativa en el fútbol español
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo (pdf)
• Resumen
  • español

    Este estudio analiza el problema de la gobernanza de Jensen examinando el Efecto de la Edad Relativa (ERA) en el fútbol español. Hemos analizado los jugadores de las ocho mejores academias de fútbol españolas (n= 736). Cuatro de las academias pertenecen a clubes y cuatro a Sociedades Anónimas Deportivas (SAD) y todas ellas juegan en la máxima categoría del fútbol español. Utilizamos la regresión de Poisson para identificar la presencia del ERA. La existencia del ERA es significativa(p<0.001) tanto en clubes como en las SADs. Según la teoría de la gobernanza de Jensen, las SADs deberían ser más eficientes, dado que la hipótesis de partida es que no se ven afectadas por el sesgo ERA, mientras que los clubes sí. Los resultados del estudio refutan el problema de gobernanza de Jensen y constituyen una nueva aportación a la teoría de los stakeholders. Los responsables políticos deberían considerar reformas de gobernanza, como modelos híbridos con múltiples stakeholders, para contrarrestar el RAE. También se pone de manifiesto que el ERA es un sesgo que afecta notablemente a las academias de fútbol y a otros deportes con muchos participantes.

  • English

    This study analyzes Jensen's problem of governance by examining the Relative Age Effect (thereinafter RAE) on Spanish Football. We analyzed the players of the top eight Spanish football academies (n=736). Four of the academies belong to clubs and four to Sport Stock Corporations (SSCs), all of them are playing in the top tier of Spanish football. We used the Poisson Regression analysis to identify the presence of the relative age effect. The existence of RAE is found to be significant (p<0.001) in both clubs and SSCs. According to Jensen's governance theory, SSCs should be more efficient, and therefore the starting hypothesis would be that they would not be affected by the RAE bias whereas clubs should. The results of the study refute Jensen's problem of governance and are a new contribution to the stakeholder’s theory. It is also evident that the RAE is a bias that notably affects football academies and other sports with a lot of participants.

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