Migrations and trade of African football players: historic, geographical and cultural aspects

Raffaele Poli

Africa Spectrum, 2006, vol. 41, issue 3, 393-414

Abstract: Professional football clubs worldwide are recruiting an increasing number of African players. While the underlying vested interests for profit and business are important, it is on a cultural level that this phenomenon has its greatest impact. The African football player as a popular icon, ambassador and mediator, is invested with a triple role, which is often difficult for him to assume. Indeed, of the multitude of young candidates who exile themselves for football, only a handful of them manage to pursue a successful career. However, due to the prevailing context of media over-exposure of football, millions of young Africans dream of leaving their country by playing this sport. In many sub-Saharan African countries football is being increasingly considered as a separate career path altogether.

Date: 2006
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gig:afjour:v:41:y:2006:i:3:p:393-414

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.giga-hamburg.de/afrika-spectrum

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Africa Spectrum from Institute of African Affairs, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Andreas Mehler ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).