The worlds of professional football and rugby are finally waking up to the injustices of the far from level playing field that confronts many young players.

Premier League teams in both sports are experimenting with “bio-banding” – the practice of grouping young players together according to their physical maturity, rather than their age. The worlds of cricket and gymnastics are taking a close interest and a similar approach in ballet is set to be the subject of a major academic study.

“When we’re grouping children for sports, we do it by age groups, but the problem is that, within those age groups, we get huge variations in biological age,” said Dr Sean Cumming, senior lecturer at the University of Bath’s department for health, which is helping Premiership rugby union side Bath conduct a six-month study evaluating bio-banding. “You can get a boy who is an early maturer, who is biologically 16, competing in an under-14 age group. Likewise, you get another kid playing in the same age group who is biologically 12 and is a late maturer. There are four years’ difference between the two of them biologically, but still we expect them to train together and compete together.”

Professional clubs appreciate bio-banding’s ability to identify late developers. Youth players who go through puberty before their peers are likely to be spotted by scouts earlier and therefore receive more support, encouragement and access to coaching and training resources.

However, the danger of this, Cumming believes, is that clubs end up ignoring “kids who could have the most potential down the line”. This year Cumming and his team helped to organise the Premier League’s first bio-banded football tournament, involving youth squad members aged 11 to 14 drawn from four clubs – Southampton, Reading, Stoke City and Norwich City. A repeat tournament, this time involving eight clubs, will be held next year.

Bio-banding is not new. It was first trialled in US high schools as far back as 1908. For years, New Zealand schools have grouped rugby teams according to weight rather than age because Maori and Polynesian children tend to develop faster than their white counterparts.

Lionel Messi, another late developer. Photograph: Lluis Gene/AFP/Getty Images

But only now is the professional sports world embracing it. There is a growing awareness that sides could be in danger of missing out on the next Maradona or Messi, both examples of youth players who were nearly axed by their teams as a result of being late developers. Arsenal must now be kicking themselves for releasing Tottenham’s superstar striker Harry Kane as an 11-year-old. “It’s hard to tell at that age what the player is going to turn into,” Kane recalled in an interview with the Telegraph. “I was only small at that age. I was small for my age. I was a late developer.”

“Early maturing boys appreciate bio-banding as well,” Cumming explained. “In a bio-banded competition, they can’t boss the game physically; they have to play a technical game and are forced to think faster, play as a team rather than doing it all themselves. Those early maturing boys have a great time at 13, 14, 15, but they don’t have to develop their technical abilities and when the other guys physically catch up with them, they don’t know how to deal with it.”

Bio-banding also allows coaches to tailor youth training programmes. Growth bursts carry an increased risk of injury and young children will respond differently based on their biological development.

A special scientific advisory group now advises Premier League teams on how to monitor the growth and maturation of their youth footballers. Since July the clubs have been operating a programme that monitors and regularly collects data on some 4,000 youth team players aged between nine and 21.

James Bunce, the head of sports science at the Premier League, who along with Dan Hunt, the head of elite performance, oversees the programme, said it allowed clubs to understand their players’ true ability.

“Because clubs and coaches have access to this information, they can understand, challenge and improve their players.” he said. “This is especially important in football when you’re dealing with players aged between nine and 21. The variety of ages and maturities is severe.”

Cumming said there had been interest in bio-banding from the English Cricket Board and the world of gymnastics. A member of his team is now being funded by the Economic and Social Research Council to conduct a study for the Journal of Adolescence, examining whether bio-banding can be beneficial to late maturing ballet dancers.

“There is some controversy,” Cumming conceded. “The vast majority of people see it as positive, but there are some people who view it cautiously and claim it takes kids away from their friends. It’s not for everyone, but once you get into programmes that are for kids who want to be an elite athlete, then it has a place.”