Football Migration Research Articles

Ernest Wilimowski – Polish and German National Team Player with an Unspecified Nationality

Athlete migration is not only an effect of contemporary globalization. Football migration is nothing new and has a long and complex history. Ernest Wilimowski, who was the only football player to represent both Poland and Germany, is a part of that history. Wilimowski was born in 1916 in Katowice, which was then part of the German Reich. In 1922, Katowice and a part of Upper Silesia were annexed to Poland. Wilimowski won the Polish football league four times. In the Polish national team, he scored 21 goals in 22 matches. In 1936, for infringing the amateur rules, he was dropped from the Olympic team and did not take part in the Berlin games. In 1938, he took part in the World Cup in France. Following Germany’s attack on Poland in 1939, he started playing for German clubs, and in 1941 made his debut in the Third Reich’s national team, in which he played eight times and scored 13 goals. Wilimowski was a modern athlete unconfined by national ties. Despite a complex political situation in Europe, he strived to achieve his sports objectives and his decisions were based on pragmatic motives.

Women's transnational migration through football: Possibilities, responsibilities, and respectability in Ghana

The growth of girls’ and women's football in Africa, coupled with increased professionalisation in Europe and the United States, has led to rising international migration of African female players. This trend reflects the longer standing culture of independent, transnational migration among African women since the late 1980s and of enlarged possibilities and responsibilities triggered by neoliberal reform across the continent. This article explores how these sporting, cultural and economic transformations have coalesced to influence the aspirations and agency of female youth and young women in Ghana. To do so, we draw on original data from ethnographic fieldwork in Ghana, Sweden and Denmark undertaken between 2015 and 2021. Our findings reveal that for ambitious, talented female footballers, transnational football migration is increasingly viewed as a speculative route to improve ones’ life chances and negotiate intergenerational responsibilities to family. Significantly, the article also illustrates that in seeking to produce this highly prized form of migration, they must carefully navigate gendered social norms and hierarchies related to ‘respectable’ career and life trajectories. The conclusion proposes a critical research agenda to explore the interplay between sporting opportunities, migration aspirations and diverse socioeconomic conditions in Africa.

The impact of cultural distance on the migration of professional athletes as high-skilled employees

Global migration creates both challenges and opportunities for employees and employers. An important issue in international business and human resource management is the integration of employees into a culturally different working industrial environment because focusing on cultural differences, integration, and mitigating culture shock can provide a competitive advantage. Our research examined the global migration involving the Hofstede cultural dimensions in the sports industry, especially in the football transfer market. The paper aims to find a relationship between cultural distance as an expression of cultural differences and international transfers of professional footballers as high-skilled and talented employees. Our study is based on a substantial quantitative examination of processing 34,430 international transfers. Our research question is: What kind of relationship can be detected between cultural distance and the migration of professional footballers? The results of a linear regression model show a significant negative correlation between the number of transfers and cultural distance. However, we believe that the country's economic performance and professional sports standards or quality are essential in addition to the cultural distance. Therefore, as a next step, the analysis involved both factors in getting a more sophisticated result. The results of the multiple regression model confirm the attitude of professional athletes; besides cultural distance, the impact of other factors (economic and/or professional aspects) is also important. Therefore, we recommend that companies pay close attention to their particularly valuable human resources.

Football migration in the Czech Republic: A multi-level analysis of football migration in a semi-peripheral European Nation

ABSTRACT Football migration, including flows and effects, is measured over the first 27 years of the independent Czech Football League. Hierarchical multi-level analysis is used to test previous sport migration effects. Particular attention is paid to the economic and sport position of both sending and receiving nations by examining results through the world-systems theory. Though the number of football migrants continues to rapidly increase, the statistical results of this study indicate that receiving football migrants into the semi-periphery nation of Czech, where football is a primary sport, may increase winning percentage in the short term, but it does not lead to increases in fan attendance or improve the nation’s FIFA rankings. Longer term deliberation needs to be taken by individual club teams, as well as national federations, in order maximize the benefits of migration flows in the future.

Historical Review of Professional Football Migration Trends from Uganda in the Era of Liberalized Sport Labour Migration, 1964-2022

Elite football migration from Africa has drawn much scholarly attention. The social value attached to the ostensibly fortunate players crossing borders has grown expansively in the continent. Still, little empirical research is available on East African football. To lay the foundations to study Ugandan footballers’ transnational lives, history, and migration trajectory, a historical review of Uganda’s football migration trends is presented. Until 1962, Ugandan sports were under the British influence and control, athlete movement was restricted, football structures were flimsy, and the economy was in dismay. With professionalization, globalization, commercialization of sports, as well as the free movement of professional athletes endorsed by the 1995 Bosman Ruling, ushered in a new era of liberalized sport labour migration. Ugandan footballers were among those who participated in this phenomenon, sometimes using other African football leagues as a springboard to their desired destinations. While football migration in the early years was dominated by men, by the early 2000s women footballers also started departing, albeit at a slower pace and following distinct migration trajectories to their male counterparts. Moreover, Ugandan footballers do not follow a predictable or consistent migration patterns, exposing the need for indepth research into the unique migration trajectories and life histories.

Book Review: African Football Migration

Book Review: African Football Migration

‘Soccer safaris’: British football migrants and apartheid South Africa, c1955–1983

ABSTRACT Apartheid South Africa remains an important theme in sport history. The study of South African football has produced a handful of monographs and several research articles. In this body of literature, relatively few studies acknowledge the migratory flows of South African footballers to various levels of British football. Often omitted altogether in these studies is the acknowledgment of the hundreds of British players, coaches, and referees who visited South Africa after the introduction of apartheid in 1948. Many of these football migrants moved to the country for employment opportunities and played the game on a recreational and professional basis. Significant numbers also migrated because of the football opportunities offered in the segregated game. Some of these migrants were involved in the burgeoning black and non-racial game in the country too. From the mid-1950s through to the 1980s, hundreds of British football migrants made South Africa their home for varying lengths of time. In many cases, despite the broader socio-political context, this was too good of a financial opportunity to turn down. To appreciate the complexities of apartheid football, cognizance of the British contribution to upholding, challenging, and overcoming the status quo in South African football is necessary.

Эволюция структур насилия в спорте: от колониализма к капитализму с азиатским лицом

The author adopted the postcolonial perspective to analyze how sport has affected the destruction of violence structures, the emancipation, and the voice of subalterns since the decolonization. Having summarized the imperial sports policy, the article introduces 4 major trends in sports after decolonization. Nationalization is described through the prism of Indonesian badminton, Moroccan football, and petanque in Pondicherry. Integration is illustrated by the participation of former colonies in the Olympic Movement, world football, and IOC statistics. Commercialization is exemplified by the growing influence of new actors, i.e., non-traditional states, non-governmental organizations, multinational companies and by the migration of African footballers, Indonesian badminton players and rugby players from Oceania. The rise of Asian countries is revealed by means of the analysis of rankings of the highest-paid female athletes and leading sports manufacturers, LPGA Tour statistics on players’ origins, the geography of international tournaments, and the case of subaltern athlete P. V. Sindhu. The researcher concludes that the growing number and the changing nature of violence structures keeps subaltern athletes in a dependent and vulnerable position, forcing them to follow the rules set by longstanding and emerging centers of power, both politically and economically.

The Game of Italians: Football and Dual Identity in Argentina 1910-1935

In 1934, Italy won the football World Cup with four Argentine-born players in their squad. Whilst this reflected Argentine footballing excellence during the era, it was also recognition of the close relationship between Italian and Argentine national identity born from mass immigration from Italy to Argentina at the turn of the twentieth century. Using the case study of football, this paper challenges existing assumptions surrounding national identity construction in Argentina that has largely neglected the role of dual identity amongst immigrant groups, and which has focused instead on assimilation and a discourse of the Argentine melting pot in bringing these disparate elements into a national whole. In contrast to a concurrent narrative of nativizing Argentine football from British influence in the 1910s, this paper makes the case that it was the Italo-Argentine community that held influence in the sport, both at a playing and boardroom level over the next two decades. It will demonstrate how football afforded Italo-Argentine community the opportunity to celebrate both their Argentine and Italian identity through the example of Genoa’s 1923 tour to Argentina. Moreover, we examine how the reverse migration of footballers from Argentina to Italy from 1910 further complicated ideas of national identity. Rezumat: În 1934, Italia a câştigat cupa mondială la fotbal, având în echipă patru jucători născuți în Argentina. În timp ce acest fapt reflectă excelența Argentinei în domeniul fotbalului în acel moment, el reprezintă şi o recunoaştere a relației strânse dintre identitatea națională argentiniană şi italiană apărută în contextual imigrației în masă din Italia în Argentina, la începutul secolului XX. Folosind studiul de caz al fotbalului, acest studio dialoghează cu prezumțiile existente în privința construcției identității naționale în Argentina, care au neglijat în mare măsură rolul identității duale în rândul grupurilor de imigranți şi care s-au focalizat în schimb asupra asimilării şi a discursului referitor la creuzetul argentinian şi rolul acestuia în a reduce această diversitate de elemente într-un tot național. În contrast cu o narațiune concurentă, referitoare la nativizarea fotbalului argentinian sub influență engleză în anii 1910, această lucrare sugerează rolul comunității italo-argentiniene în consolidarea acestui sport, atât în privința jocului în sine, cât şi la nivelul decizional, în următoarele două decenii. Lucrarea va demonstra cum fotbalul a oferit comunității italo-argentiniene oportunitatea de a celebra atât identitatea lor italiană, cât şi cea argentiniană, prin exemplul turului genovez în Argentina din 1923. În plus, studiul va examina cum migrația inversă a fotbaliştilor, din Argentina în Italia, începând cu 1910, a complicat şi mai mult problema identității naționale. Cuvinte-cheie: sport, identitate, Argentina, migrație, etnie, asimilare

Exploring migration experiences of foreign footballers to England through the use of autobiographies

ABSTRACT This article examines the sport labour migration of elite footballers who have transferred from another European country to the English Premier League (EPL). Sport labour migration happens for a number of reasons, including financial gain and professional development. With this, however, comes various challenges like cultural shock and cultural dislocation. To extend the research on migration, data was gathered from autobiographies, with ten premier league footballers who had transferred from one of five selected European leagues. Results revealed a number of insights into a player migratory experience, including the importance of settling in, dealing with the characteristics of a new league, a need for positive support from the club and the negative impact of the media. Findings inform how to improve the migration experiences in both sport and other job sectors that require acculturation.

Why are East African Players Absent in European Football? Localizing African Football Migration Along Structural Constraints, Colonial Legacies and Voluntary Immobility

While studies on transnational African football migration have increasingly attracted scholarly attention, little is known about the continent’s regional particularities. However, in contrast to the massive influx of footballers from West and North Africa, squads of European professional clubs seldom include players from East Africa. Yet, the concentration on West Africa in academic studies runs the risk of overgeneralizing certain practices on the African continent and, hence, of reproducing Africa’s standing as the homogeneous peripheral other. By analyzing the various historical, structural, and socio-cultural reasons for the general absence of migrant footballers from East Africa, we aim at contributing to a more nuanced picture of African football migration and further discuss the ambivalent consequences of players’ spatial immobility for East Africa’s football development.

Interrogating internal migration of elite Nigerian footballers

ABSTRACT There is a growing body of academic studies on international migration of football labour. Most of the migrations occur as a result of economic disparities with footballers leaving poor economies, like Nigeria, in droves in search of better employment in the wealthy leagues. Although there is increasingly studies on internal or intra-national migration of footballers, few of them have addressed reasons why these footballers migrate. This study, using the unfolding theory of voluntary turnover, attempts to fill this gap. It investigates internal migrations of football labour in Nigeria in search of reasons for such migrations and also what drawbacks accompany such migrations. Information on such migrations may provide insights to the broader international migrations of football labour. The findings show six major reasons why players migrate and four drawbacks from migration.

Kwame Nkrumah’s Overthrow and Its Effect on National Team Players (1957–1980)

Studies have revealed the evolution of African football from the 1980s to the 2000s by explaining how the migration of football talents from the continent intensified. Before the 1980s, African footballers were an integral part of sports labour migration to North America but this topic has evoked little scholarly interest in the history of football migration. This paper analyses the movement of African football talents, particularly West Africans, to leagues in the United States from 1967 to 1984. Data on this period of migration is lacking. The paper further provides insight into how the promotion of football by Nkrumah interplayed with political, social, and economic influences on the African continent. Firstly, it discusses several reasons behind Ghanaian players’ decision not to go abroad to play professionally after the country‘s independence in 1957 under the leadership of Kwame Nkrumah. Secondly, it analyses the state of football in Ghana after Nkrumah was overthrown, especially from the perspective of the national team players and its consequences on their livelihood. The continued decline of the game in Ghana after 1966 resulted in several players migrating to the North American Soccer League (NASL) in 1968. This further explains some adverse effects after Nkrumah was toppled. This paper concludes by bringing to the understanding of readers the continent‘s political icon who used sport as a vehicle to champion African unity via the mantra of Pan-Africanism.

Sports migrants in ‘Central’ and ‘Eastern’ Europe: beyond the existing narratives

Abstract Outside of Europe’s top football leagues, migrant athletes are often subjected to short-term contracts, poor housing conditions, isolation and the ever-present risk of premature career termination due to injuries. This paper is part of a current multi-sited ethnography on Brazilian futsal and football migrants in Central and Eastern Europe. It is based on life-history interviews with migrant players and uses transnational lenses to approach sports migrants’ movements in these regions. The study conceptualises futsal and football as an ethnographic continuum. Football and futsal players participate in similar processes of early professionalisation. However, at the ages of 16 or 17, athletes become professionals in either football or futsal, seeking specialisation. The role that borders, families, injuries and emotions play in the lives of sports migrants are also analysed. The current study presents a diversified narrative of contemporary sports migration movements.

Exploring the return migration experience of football migrants: a case study of Ghanaian footballers

ABSTRACT This paper extends the literature on return migration by exploring the return decisions and reintegration process of Ghanaian football migrants into the Ghanaian society. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 10 football migrants, we examine their motivations for eventual return, life after return, their challenges and contribution to their country of origin. We adopt the structural approach on return migration as the conceptual framework. Findings show that Ghanaian football migrants return due to their attachment to Ghana, a desire to be with family and a willingness to contribute in a meaningful way toward development in Ghana despite challenges experienced upon return.

In Search of “Greener Pitches”: African Footballers and Labor Market Migration in European Football

This article examines the migration of African, including Nigerian, footballers to Europe in search of better professional opportunities. The paper situates the migration of Nigerian footballers to European football clubs in the political economy of international football and the location of African footballers in that context. The search for “greener pitches” among African footballers is, the paper argues, largely a product of a combination of political and economic factors, central to which is the neoliberal market ideology underlain by globalization and the technological breakthroughs in information and communications technology, and the massive developments that the world has witnessed in the transportation system. The paper highlights how the role of international organizations like FIFA, UEFA and CAF has led to the emergence of unscrupulous elements whose activities have served to undermine the growth and development of African football. By way of conclusion, the article suggests that unless these apex governing bodies of world football join forces, the exploitation of aspiring young African footballers seeking to migrate to Europe will persist, with grave implications for the development of the “beautiful game” in Africa.

Nigeria: as football labour scrambles, what about family?

Several studies have emerged on migration of football labour. A large number of these studies followed the loosening of transfer rules after the landmark 1995 Jean-Marc Bosman court case. The studies, however, focus on polarization of talents and club wealth, wages and effects on minors and family. In essence, macro structural issues. However, the lack of attention to micro issues such as human agency and the ignoring of the more voluminous intra-national migration of football labour means that there is less understanding of micro issues pertaining to intra-national football migration. To address this problem, this article focuses on intra-national footballer migrations and their impact on family in Nigeria. Interview data are obtained in a study of 15 footballers drawn from seven clubs in the country’s elite league. Results provide insights, with some providing surprising data that differ remarkably from results of similar studies on intra-national football migration in Britain.

Republic of Ireland-born football migrants and university access, 1945–2010

This article assesses the rates of third-level degree obtainment amongst Republic of Ireland-born football migrants who played league football in England in the period from 1945 until 2010. It will illustrate that despite a general widening of access and participation at university level in the Republic of Ireland in the late twentieth century, the number of these footballers who successfully completed degree courses remained small. It will show that some players have taken up third-level education independently and their access routes will be discussed along with influences on their post-playing career decisions. Despite improvements in educational access for young players at British clubs, and the development of university scholarships for aspiring players in Ireland, the Irish government has been slow to provide assistance for football migrants in terms of player and educational welfare. This article traces the evolution of governmental attitudes towards the provision of welfare and education for talented footballers, and illustrates that it was not until the early twenty-first century that these matters began to gain significant attention in the Dáil. However, there is currently no formal structure in place in Ireland to help them prepare for and come to terms with a post-professional career.

Stepping stones? An exploration of internal football player migration in the Republic of Ireland

ABSTRACTThe football spatial landscape is a key consideration for the equity of any football association and its constituent members. Organizational processes can shape these landscapes and influence player development. Analysing migratory patterns of youth footballers can provide an insight into such processes. This paper investigates the migratory patterns of underage footballers within the Republic of Ireland development pathway. The sample consisted of n = 1937 youth footballers who had been selected onto the Football Association of Ireland’s primary talent development programme, the Emerging Talent Programme (ETP), between 2006 and 2012. Analysis shows clear migratory patterns towards the Dublin District Schoolboy League (DDSL), primarily from a double-tiered level of migration around Dublin. Clubs that had developed reciprocal relationships with clubs in the UK and were more prominent at underage level were the most common location for internally migrating footballers. Research has historically neglected internal patterns of migration, focusing on transnational football migration. Internal patterns of migration demonstrate inequity across the football development pathway and may result in potential sources of talent being neglected or improperly developed which is a cause of concern within smaller national associations.

How does professional football status challenge African players’ behaviour?

ABSTRACTFootball has become a lucrative business with its global viewership attracting many African players to move to leagues abroad. This paper explores the sociological approaches of Weber and Granovetter to understand the behaviour change in attitudes of African players after achieving professional football status abroad. It does so by analysing ‘before and after’ migration to Europe which is often ascribed to professional players’ social upward mobility. The paper employs a qualitative approach with structured interviews and autobiographies of some players. The literature draws from social behaviour change and football migration and mobility concepts. Findings indicate that football has a way of changing African players’ behaviour and makes others become a ‘different human being’. However, their behaviours should rather translate into doing good things for society than assuming noxious stimuli.