Donating to Ghent University

Chair on Rotating Reference Date and Motivating Football Culture

In youth football, players are typically grouped according to their year of birth. As a result, there can be age differences of up to nearly twelve months within a single age category. Young footballers born early in the year often have a physical and mental development advantage over those born later in the same year. This phenomenon is known as the relative age effect. To reduce this inequality, Voetbal Vlaanderen developed a rotation system for the reference date. This system periodically shifts the reference date so that, during their youth training, players experience being part of both the younger and older halves of their age group. In this way, all players are given more equal opportunities for development. The Chair supports the scientific monitoring and evaluation of this system within Flemish youth football.

Aim

The Chair aims to promote research and education in the field of sport and motivation psychology. Within this framework, the research focuses on studying and supporting the implementation of the rotating reference date system in youth football. Attention will be paid to:

  • the experiences of players, coaches, parents, and clubs
  • the psychosocial development of young football players
  • motivation, enjoyment of the game, and player engagement
  • factors that influence the success of the system

In addition, the Chair contributes to the development of practical tools and knowledge sharing within Voetbal Vlaanderen, as well as to scientific publications on these topics.

Donor

Voetbal Vlaanderen is the Flemish football federation and is committed to providing a high-quality, safe, and motivating football environment for all players. The organization aims, through this Chair, to contribute to a youth football system in which development, enjoyment, and equal opportunities are central.
Through its collaboration with Ghent University, Voetbal Vlaanderen seeks to have the rotation system scientifically evaluated and to use the insights from this research for the further development of youth football.

Supervisor

Professor Maarten Vansteenkiste is a professor of developmental and motivation psychology at Ghent University. In his research, he seeks to further develop Self-Determination Theory, a well-known and strongly empirically validated framework. He is regarded worldwide as an expert in motivation psychology and, together with his friend and academic companion Bart Soenens, authored the book “Vitamins for Growth: Nurturing Development from the Perspective of Self-Determination Theory” (Vansteenkiste & Soenens, 2015). He is interested in studying, both theoretically and empirically, the link between Self-Determination Theory and other motivational frameworks, and uses the theory as a source of inspiration to examine motivational dynamics in numerous life domains, such as education, parenting, health care, ecology, work, and sport and physical activity. He has published extensively on these topics in leading international journals and was recognized as a “highly cited researcher” in 2019 and 2020.

He currently supervises numerous postdoctoral researchers, PhD candidates, and master’s students. He also gives many lectures on the relevance of Self-Determination Theory for a broad audience of teachers, sports coaches, managers, therapists, and parents.