“The World at their Feet”

Abstract

The global migration of footballers to and within the top professional leagues in Europe has greatly accelerated in the last decade. Commercial interests in this “football business” have also grown prodigiously and the English leagues, especially the Premier League, have experienced an associated and pronounced increase in foreign player migration. The Premier League, supported by intensive commercial investment, has placed England on the career map of some top global stars. The globalization of football and its labor migrants can only be considered as part of a multifaceted and multidirectional process. This paper provides a model for understanding the globalization of football and the movement of its labor, but also probes beneath this model, drawing on findings from interview-based interpretative research conducted with foreign professional players in England (n = 22). A typology based on player experiences is established, explaining some of the key experiential dimensions of sports labor migration.

Brits abroad: a case study analysis of three British footballers migrating to the Hungarian Soproni Liga

“…It is also important to consider that, as with other studies of this nature, one of the key methodological difficulties lay with access to interviewees -a problem often 520 R. Elliott exacerbated in 'the impregnable world of professional football'. 26 For this study, access was granted to the players via a gatekeeper who was a mutual acquaintance of the author and one of the players. The gatekeeper was able to gain the consent of the two other migrant players who had been based at the club in Hungary.…”

“…In this respect, the majority of athletic migrants gravitate towards the core, rather than away from it. 19 Migration away from the core could be explained via various factors. These might include the lack of opportunity for career development in an athlete's home nation.…”

“…Arguably, this is because of the difficulties associated with gaining access to elite athletes, difficulties that are often exacerbated in professional football. 8 Before any data can be analysed, however, it is important to introduce the conceptual context into which this analysis will be situated.…”

Poles apart: foreign players, Polish football and Euro 2012

“…These include the need to seek out a professional sporting experience, an intensity of commitment, the desire to test one's abilities at the highest level and the capacity to take advantage of cultural similarities such as language familiarity. 14 Additionally, Magee and Sugden 15 have shown that migration does not always occur by choice. On some occasions, players may be pushed from a particular location, they might be exiled or expelled from the league or even the country in which they currently ply their trade.…”

“…Moreover, it should not be assumed that the globalisation of football and the relative (economic) success of some teams and leagues should be seen to reflect the economic success of nations in broader terms; some of the world's most powerful economies are located outside of football's economic core. 4 Given the above, it is not our intention to examine one of European football's elite leagues in this paper. Instead, we focus on what might be referred to as a transitional economy in football terms -the Polish Ekstraklasa.…”