Ethnic identity and the choice to play for a national team: a study of junior elite football players with a migrant background

ABSTRACT

In German (junior) elite football, there are a comparatively large number of highly talented players with a migrant background. These players were born in Germany and joined the Talent Development Programme of the German Football Association (DFB). Many of these players can decide for which national association they want to play in international games. In media and public discourse, this decision is usually explained by the degree of self-identification with a specific ethnic group. However, this assumption is not empirically evident. Using the example of junior elite players with a Turkish background, this article focuses therefore on the question, which role ethnic identity plays in this decision. Based on social identity theory, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 adolescent elite football players with Turkish background who played for the German and/or the Turkish Football Association. Our findings suggest that – in contrast to media narratives – ethnic identity only plays a marginal role in the decision to play for a national football association.

KEYWORDS:

• German Turks
• elite junior football
• ethnic identity
• athlete identity
• migrant background

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Ramón Spaaij http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1260-3111

Notes

1 The term ‘migrant background’ includes a variety of differentiations which reflect aspects like citizenship, personal migration experience and immigration generation. Although this expression is not common in international publications, it is highly relevant in German migration research. The term is highly associated with German politics of dual citizenship (Gerdes, Faist, and Rieple 2016).

2 In order to anonymize the interviewees, we decided to use the names of the countries’ capitals in the quote instead of the actual city names.