Affinity as Basis for Interchangeability Between Athletes

Abstract

As consequence of the recessive and depressive process of economic activity, sports entities have been forced to review its management in order to reduce financial costs. This requires a very strict administration from an aspect that generates one of the greater financial needs throughout the exercise: the acquisition of the rights over the athletes. But in addition, the selection of an athlete becomes more complex when it refers to a team sport. In team sports, in addition to having good professionals, groups of interchangeable athletes must be hired, in order to make substitutions due to fatigue, injury or various incidents. From a scientific perspective, algorithms are applied to solve some of the problems when placing financial resources in hiring a team athlete [Pichat (Inform. Process. 69, 1969), Huang et al. (Inform. Process. Lett. 99(4):149-153, 2006)]. In this paper we address the formation of groups of athletes with a high degree of interchangeability when there is inaccuracy in the information available. We will use the concepts of similarity, similitude and affinity. The objective is the adaptation of groups of players reducing financial cost to the team but maintaining the highest reachable performance.