Is Air Pollution Responsible for your Football Team’s Poor Performance?

Fans and managers of struggling football teams all across the UK (and indeed Europe) have perhaps been gifted another scapegoat to blame for their poor form – air pollution. A study conducted by the IZA Economic Institute in Bonn, Germany, have found a correlation between high levels of pollution and poor on-field performance.

The investigation was conducted by Eric Sommer, Nico Pestel and Andreas Lichter and focused on the 20 teams in Germany’s top league between the years of 1999 and 2011.

Pass Completion Rates Suffer from Poor Air Quality

Quantifying performance levels of all 22 players on the pitch is something of a tricky challenge, so the three researchers decided to use the number of completed passes by each player as a yardstick for their evaluation.

“While the number of passes is not a measure of physical performance per se, it serves as our preferred productivity indicator since it is related to the speed of the game and, importantly, is highly relevant for a team’s success by retaining ball possession and creating scoring opportunities,” explained the research team to the Guardian. “Moreover, passes provide a reliable measure, as passing is the essential nature of the game, which limits the role of chance.”

These figures were then compared to pollution levels as measured by the German Federal Environment Agency outside each stadium on the match day.

The study found that the average level of pollution for particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5) was roughly 23.8 mg/m³, but that on certain occasions the levels crept up to 50 mg/m³ – which is the legal limit as imposed by the European Union (EU). 7% of all matches analysed showed levels of PM2.5 higher than this legal limit.

A Noticeable Difference

However, it didn’t require illegal levels of PM2.5 to hamper player performance. The number of passes made by players diminished significantly well below that threshold, but above it their pass completion rate could be reduced by as much as 16%.

Furthermore, it was also found that the age of the player involved had a direct effect on how much he was affected by the air pollution. The damaging effects of daily exposure to air pollution on young lungs has long been a cause for concern, but here the evidence showed that it had a direct bearing on performance even in fully grown adults. Those players (especially defenders and midfielders, who are generally more involved in the action) over the age of 30 years showed a pronounced drop-off in performance.

The pass completion rate was also influenced by the period of rest between games, with games which followed more quickly on the back of each other generally producing fewer completed passes. Interestingly, higher pollution levels also often contributed to players adopting a longer passing range, possibly in a subconscious effort to mitigate the effects of the contaminated air.

Pollution on Sea and Land Affects Sports

The data throws up interesting observations about how clean air can affect the performance of sportsmen and women, which has wider-reaching implications for the populace as a whole.

In related news, concerns have been raised about the dangers of poor water quality in Rio de Janeiro in the run-up to this year’s Olympic Games. Certain quarters have expressed fears that unsanitary conditions of the bays surrounding the Brazilian city will make it unsuitable and indeed hazardous to participants in water sports. Further clean-up operations are ongoing.