Researchers of a new study found that Premier League elite footballers cover lesser ground while playing the game even though they are paid higher than League One and Championship players.
Footballers' salaries are always a debatable topic. Some players make more money than they're worth. It's no secret that English Premier League players earn much more than League One and Championship players.
However, the question remains if these elite players are rightfully earning what they're being paid.
University of Sunderland researchers conducted a study to answer this question and found that it is those in the lower leagues who are covering a greater distance at a higher intensity. Researchers found that League One players ran a lot further at a higher intensity than those in the Championship. The same trend was discovered when Championship players were compared to the Premier League ones.
Experts believe that this could be due to more teams adopting a long ball style of play when one goes further down the football pyramid.
"This research highlights that the long ball game does make you work harder, and that the context of the game dictates how each individual or team works. Some of the results were quite surprising as we expected there would be differences in the technical areas between the leagues, but not the physical nature," Dr Paul Bradley, led the research and is a senior lecturer in Sport and Exercise Science at the University of Sunderland, said in a press statement.
"The data provides new insight into the possible impact technical characteristics have on match running performances and highlights that players at lower standards could tax their physical capacity to a greater extent....These findings could be associated with technical characteristics inherent to lower standards that require players to tax their physical capacity to a greater extent."
The findings are published in the journal Human Movement Science.
