‘Yet, they didn’t sign me’: the production of precarity in amateur and semi-professional football in Nigeria

Abstract

This paper investigated how the experiences of precarity are produced in amateur and semi-professional football in Nigeria through qualitative interviews with former amateur and semi-professional footballers. Though a few studies have highlighted the precarities that football career aspirations produce among West African youth, the mechanisms through which such precarious experiences develop remain loosely articulated. This paper fills this gap. The findings revealed that precarious experiences emanate from an overbearing athletic identity, a disconnect between imagined mobility through football and actual opportunity, institutional failures, and corruption and exploitation. The policy implications include a need for a framework for dual career and life after football programme in amateur and semi-professional clubs, centred around information, health education and skills training, as well as institutional and regulatory reforms for better governance of the sector.