Happy birthday, Lamine Yamal. The Spanish footballer, who broke Pele’s record for the youngest ever goalscorer at a major tournament with a wonder strike against France on Tuesday, turns 17 today. Tomorrow night he takes to the pitch in Berlin for the European Championship final against England. A blind eye has been turned to the possibility that, under German child labour laws, it may be illegal for him to play the full fixture.
If you’re good enough, you’re old enough has long been a principle of competitive sport. And Yamal seems preternaturally composed in the spotlight. But his rise comes against a backdrop of shifting attitudes towards age and responsibility.
In recent decades, many countries have raised the age at which people can work, marry or be convicted of a crime. Over the same period, some have also reduced the voting age to 16. The fluid and often arbitrary line of demarcation between childhood and adulthood continues to be a source of social anxiety.
Meanwhile, across the world, a dramatic demographic shift is changing the balance between the generations. With birth rates falling and life expectancy rising, the young – however they are defined – will soon make up a much smaller share of the overall population. The consequences are hard to predict but will certainly be challenging.
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Yamal’s economic security is already assured, but his Generation Z peers, born between 1997 and 2012, face a world where the burden of supporting an expanding cohort of over-65s will weigh heavily on their shoulders. It is hard to see how this will not give rise to new intergenerational tensions. Some of these are already visible over disparities in pension rights, job security and access to housing between the old and the young.
And if age really is just a number, and what matters is whether you are good enough, then that applies equally at the other end of life’s span. The world may be full of healthy, mentally agile octogenarians but the same scrutiny should be applied to their fitness for high office as to whether a teenager is ready for football superstardom.