Football and Migration

Football is an incredibly powerful case study of globalization and an extremely useful lens through which to study and understand contemporary processes of international migration. This is the first book to focus on the increasingly complex series of migratory processes that contour the contemporary game, drawing on multi-disciplinary approaches from sociology, history, geography and anthropology to explore migration in football in established, emerging and transitional contexts.
The book examines shifting migration patterns over time and across space, and analyses the sociological dynamics that drive and influence those patterns. It presents in-depth case studies of migration in elite men's football, exploring the role of established leagues in Europe and South America as well as important emerging leagues on football's frontier in North America and Asia. The final section of the book analyses the movement of groups who have rarely been the focus of migration research before, including female professional players, elite youth players, amateur players and players' families, drawing on important new research in Ghana, England, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
Few other sports have such a global reach and therefore few other sports are such an important location for cross-cultural research and insight across the social sciences. This book is engaging reading for any student or scholar with an interest in sport, sociology, human geography, migration, international labour flows, globalization, development or post-colonial studies.

Richard Elliott is Associate Professor and Director of the Lawrie McMenemy Centre for Football Research at Southampton Solent University, UK. He received his PhD from Loughborough University. His expertise lay in the areas of globalisation and migration in football where he has published widely. Regularly consulted by the professional football industry, he has worked in conjunction with the Football Association, the Premier League, the Professional Footballers' Association, the League Managers Association and professional clubs. He also provides expert opinion for the media, appearing in print, on radio and television in the UK and internationally John Harris is Reader in International Sport & Event Management at Glasgow Caledonian University, UK where he also leads the Sport and Identities Research Cluster. He is author of Rugby Union and Globalization (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) and has published work on numerous aspects of international football

Foreword: Figuring out sport migration: Old maps, new trails (Joseph Maguire) Perspectives, places and players: An introduction to football and migration (John Harris & Richard Elliott) Part 1: Perspectives 1. Mobility, migration and history: Football and early transnational networks (Pierre Lanfranchi & Matthew Taylor) 2. Chasing the ball: The motivations, experiences and effects of migrant professional footballers (Richard Elliott) 3. Football and migration: A contemporary geographical analysis (Rafaelle Poli & Roger Besson) Part 2: Places 4. Migration and soccer in a football world: The United States of America and the global game (John Harris) 5. Circulation, bubbles, returns: The mobility of Brazilians in the football system (Carmen Rial) 6. The migration of Irish professional footballers: The good, the bad and the ugly (Seamus Kelly) 7. Football and migration: An analysis of South Korean football (Jung-Woo Lee) 8. League of retirees: Foreigners in Hungarian professional football (Gyozo Molnar) Part 3: Players 9. Current patterns and tendencies in women's football migration: Outsourcing or national protectionism as the way forward? (Sine Agregaard) 10. Youth migration in English professional football: Living, labouring and learning in Premier League academies (Gavin Weedon) 11. 'No one would burden the sea and then never get any benefit': Family involvement in players' migration to football academies in Ghana (Nienke van der Meij & Paul Darby) 12. Finding football in the Dominican Republic: Haitian migrants, space, place and notions of exclusion (Nicholas Wise and John Harris) Playing the long-ball game: Future directions in the study of football and migration (Richard Elliott & John Harris)