Career paths of Swedish top-level women soccer players

Abstract

This study explores seven Swedish top-level women's soccer players' career development experiences. Data were produced through semi-structured interviews and a biographical mapping grid. The theoretical framework of 'careership' was employed to understand the data. The results showed homogenous career paths. Moreover, the data show that the players decided at a young age to pursue a career in soccer; experienced the transition from junior to senior level soccer as difficult because of a lack of physical preparedness; soccer over school commitments. We recommend that soccer stakeholders (e.g. federations, clubs, coaches) give the transition from junior to senior level soccer special attention to prevent intense demands that may cause dropout. We further propose that if athletes should give sport and education equal priority, the Swedish dual career concept of high school education and sport needs further reflection and adjustment.

Composite vignettes of Swedish male and female professional handball players’ career paths

“…Several researchers (e.g. Ryba and Wright 2010;Gledhill and Harwood 2015;Ronkainen, Watkins, and Ryba 2016;Gledhill, Harwood, and Forsdyke 2017;Andersson and Barker-Ruchti 2018) emphasized that female athletes' career studies are scarce and often focus on just describing women's differences or violations from the men's 'norm' .…”

“…For example, at the development stage, female athletes struggled with high training demands, pressure from coaches, and the combination of sport and studies that did not allow enough time for recovery; they also more often reported higher stress and lower confidence than male athletes. Recent research on Swedish female elite football players at the development career stage (Andersson and Barker-Ruchti 2018) described increasing demands in school and sport that led to the players' stressful living and stimulated their decision to prioritize sport (more often) or school. Coming back to Tekavc's study, at mastery stage, female athletes were less satisfied with their training regime and preparations for completions, struggled with coordinating their athletic and gender identities; they reported limited financial and professional support as well as higher physical and mental exhaustion from combining sport and studies than male athletes.…”

“…After school, females developed a back-up plan due to awareness of insufficient money and limited professional handball opportunities. The plot of the female vignette reveals stressful living caused by demands of performing well not only in sport but also academically and socially (Gledhill and Harwood 2015;Tekavc 2017;Andersson and Barker-Ruchti 2018). Throughout their handball careers, female players tried to adopt the dominant (and male-oriented) performance narrative, and when they did feel a poor fit with it, they developed side storylines related to their academic, social, gender, and cultural identities (e.g.…”

Brazilian women elite futsal players’ career development: diversified experiences and late sport specialization

“…Despite this scenario of improvement of women futsal, this practice in Brazil is still timid in comparison to it could be 11 , mainly due to the reproduction of gender discrimination in which futsal, as well as football a , are still held as men preserved sport practice 8,12,13 . On this sociocultural aspect, Brazilian context is different from some countries in North America (USA and Canada) and Europe (Germany and Sweden, as examples), in which football practice is well developed and widespread among women 14 . In Brazilian reality, even amateur, as professional women futsal and football clubs, are affected by the reduced offer of investments, market consumption, and sponsorships in relation to men 16,17 .…”

“…This process of segregation create barriers to women participation in sport, reproducing a kind of men symbolic domination 22,23 , especially in sports that can be considered as men preserved practices, such as futsal 8,12,16 , influencing pedagogical processes as well as contexts of sports practices to girls and women 9,23,24 . Therefore, to investigate the career development of wellsucceeded women in sport can be a way to better understand how such social condition of gender issues and specific sport practice (training and competition) condition has influenced athletes' life and personal experiences 8,12,14 , as well as can work as a subsidy to reflect on policies and pedagogic intervention on sport activities for women 16,24 . Studies on women who achieved an elite level in sport are justified by the athletes' career investment processes and their success 24,25 , overcoming not only barriers related to sports competition, but mainly to a wider sociocultural perspective 19,24 .…”