A new study shows that pupils sitting their GCSE exams in the same year as a football tournament tend to underperform.

As we know, both the World Cup and European Championship happen every four years and two years apart - and football fans struggle to focus on anything else for that period of time.

And having been one of the unlucky ones to sit my GCSE's in the same year as a World Cup back in 2014, I can vouch just how difficult it is to revise while there's a festival of football going on.

You tell yourself you're going to get a solid hour of RE revision in but it's hard to focus when Germany are spanking Brazil 7-1.

While you need that A in Science, it's not easy as a 16-year old to turn off Chile vs Australia when things are getting spicy on the pitch.

Image: PA

New in-depth research from academics Robert Metcalfe, Simon Burgess and Steven Proud compares GCSE results in the 2000s for all teenagers in England in tournament years to ones where there are no footballing distractions.

The result: the chances of achieving the all-important five GSCE's fell by 12 per cent - thus proving the negative effect on performance the beautiful game can have.

Gavin Kelly from The Guardian reports that it applies to both girls and boys as they both perform less than expected, though specifically working class white boys underachieve to the extent where the odds of them getting the benchmark of five GCSE grades dips by 28 per cent.

We must also mention that anyone who has their GCSE's in a tournament year will also have a feast of international football on two years later if they choose to sit their A-levels so they really have it tough.

Maybe a winter World Cup isn't so bad after all when you factor education in to it...

Research Shows GCSE Grades Suffer When There's A World Cup Or Euros On