The Smithman Qualitative Soccer Index (SQS Index or Smithman Index) is a mathematical system for the ranking of amateur athletes in competitive
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...
. The index ranks players by on both defensive (including goal tending) and offensive capabilities. It is an outgrowth of the work of ''Douglas et al.'' (1952) for the qualification of
amateur sports
Amateur sports are sports in which participants engage largely or entirely without remuneration. The distinction is made between amateur sporting participants and professional sports, professional sporting participants, who are paid for the time t ...
competence.
History
Until 1987, the standard method of displaying a score on the SQS Index was to use a
complex number
In mathematics, a complex number is an element of a number system that extends the real numbers with a specific element denoted , called the imaginary unit and satisfying the equation i^= -1; every complex number can be expressed in the for ...
where the first value is the player's defensive capability score and the second (or complex) number is the offensive capability score. Between 1987 and 1989, the standard changed to place a colon or slash between the defensive and offensive capability score, the offensive score was also placed first in this standard (as opposed to previously, where it had been displayed second), leading to confusion.
After the 1989 season, the standard method of displaying the score was changed so the two separate scores are given and stated explicitly. This is much closer to the system suggested by Douglas et al. in their original paper.
The Index is based on each of 10 skills for each defensive and offensive capabilities with a possible score of -1 (under-developed) to 1 (outstanding) with gradations of 0.2 per skill, meaning each capability score ranges between -10 and 10.
Currently, many sports organizations prefer to present scores from 1 to 21, feeling that negative scores, or scores of zero are harmful to the development of amateur athletes.
Since 1990, the SQS Index has fallen out of favor in preference to simple report cards and other non-mathematical systems of competence reporting. The ''Ontario young amateur association of soccer coaches, players and officials'' has ceased the use of the Smithman Index for the beginning of the 1994 season.
References
Douglas et al., a scale for the mathematical ranking of amateur athletes in competitive sports, ''Journal of statistical analysis of amateur athletics'', vol. 17, issue: 5, p. 557
{{DEFAULTSORT:Smithman Qualitative Index
Association football records and statistics