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Abstract
Football clubs are recruiting progressively more foreign football players, in particular from developing countries. For this purpose, clubs establish football academies in foreign countries or buy foreign players on the transfer market. We examine the economic rationale behind these two recruitment strategies and discuss how a club’s optimal recruitment strategy depends on the characteristics of the country, which it recruits players from. We argue that a country’s economic development affects the trade-off between the different costs and benefits of the two recruitment strategies. We provide empirical support for our argument by drawing on semi-structured qualitative interviews to describe and compare the transfer markets and football academies in two developing countries with different levels of economic development, namely Senegal and South Africa.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the participants of the International Conference on Globalization, Migration and Development: The Role of Football from a Transnational Perspective. The author is particularly grateful to Paul Darby, Valentina Mazzucato, Raffaele Poli, Djamila Schans, Jo Swinnen, Thijs Vandemoortele and two anonymous referees for useful comments and suggestions.
Notes
1. Taylor, ‘Global Players’, 8.
2. Cornelissen and Solberg, ‘Sport Mobility and Circuits of Power’; Darby and Solberg, ‘Differing Trajectories’.
3. Andreff, ‘Pistes de Réflexion Economique’, for the Malaja, Kolpak and Simutenkov cases and Chaix, ‘Le rugby professionnel’, for the Cotonou agreement.
4. Magee and Sugden, ‘The World at their Feet’; Andreff, ‘The Taxation of Player Moves’; Andreff, ‘The Economic Effects of “muscle drain”’.
5. Beine et al., ‘Brain drain and Human Capital Formation’; Dustmann et al., ‘Return Migration’.
6. Swinnen and Vandemoortele, ‘Sports and Development’, 7.
7. Darby et al., ‘Football Academies’, 148.
8. See note 2 and 7 above.
9. See Bale and Maguire, The Global Sports Arena; and Maguire, Global Sports, for seminal works. Numerous studies have used world systems theory (e.g. Magee and Sugden, ‘The World at their Feet’; and Poli, ‘Explaining the “Muscle Drain”’), neo-marxist theory (e.g. see note 7 above), agency theory (e.g. the numerous works by Carter), global value chain theory, network theory and even the fusion of the latter two theories (Darby, Moving Players, Traversing Perspectives).
10. Poli, ‘Migrations and Trade’, 397. See also note 7 above.
11. See the numerous works by Darby.
12. Monk, ‘Modern Apprenticeships’; Monk and Russell, ‘Training Apprenticeships’; Monk and Olsson, ‘Modern Apprenticeships’; Ferrari et al., ‘The Effect of “Feet Drain”’; Elliot and Weedon, ‘Foreign Players’.
13. Szymanski and Smith, ‘The English Football Industry’; Poli, ‘African Migrants’.
14. North, Institutions.
15. Poli and Rossi, Football Agents.
16. Késenne, ‘Youth Development and Training’, 548.
17. Kahn, ‘The Sports Business’, 75.
18. Monk, ‘Modern Apprenticeships’; Relvas et al., ‘Organizational Structures and Working Practices’, 167.
19. Carmichael and Thomas, ‘Bargaining in the Transfer Market’.
20. Maguire and Pearton, ‘Global Sport’. See also note 4 above.
21. Meyer, ‘Institutions, Transaction Costs and Entry Mode Choice’.
22. Hoffmann et al., ‘The Socio-economic Determinants’, 259; Houston and Wilson, ‘Income, Leisure and Proficiency’.
23. IMF, http://www.imf.org.
24. See e.g. Darby, ‘Go Outside’.
25. Schokkaert et al., ‘Mega-events and Sports Institutional Development’, 325.
26. Alegi, African Soccerscapes.
27. Mbapndah, http://www.panafricanvisions.com/old/8/sports.htm.
28. Bianchini, http://www.ambafrance-uk.org/Development-Diambars-an-online.html.
29. May, Champions im Fuβball – Champions im Leben?
30. Mannion, http://www.thediplomaticsociety.co.za.
31. Sanchez, http://en.starafrica.com.
32. McKinley, ‘“Transformation” from Above’, 91.
33. Beamish, Multinational Joint Ventures; Blomström and Sjöholm, ‘Technology Transfer and Spillovers’.
34. Wei et al., ‘Mutual Productivity Spillovers’.
35. Lanfranchi and Taylor, Moving with the Ball; Bloomfield, Africa United.
36. Poli, ‘Africans’ Status’, 289; Poli, ‘Understanding Globalization Through Football’.
37. Akindes, ‘Football Bars’.
38. Darby, ‘Ghanaian Football Labour Migration’.
39. Alegi, Laduma!
40. See note 2 above.
41. Kunene, ‘Winning the Cup but Losing the Plot?’, 376.
42. See note 2 above.
44. Apart from the many interesting works by Poli and Darby, see also Maguire and Stead, ‘Border Crossings’.
45. See note 2 above.
46. Dejonghe, ‘The Place of Sub-Sahara Africa’, 105.
47. Dejonghe and Vandeweghe, ‘Belgian Football’.
48. Carter, ‘Family Networks’.
49. Apart from the works by Carter, also Giulianotti and Roberston, ‘Recovering the Social’, is very interesting in this respect.
50. Schiller et al., ‘Transnationalism’.