Have the Olympic Games become more migratory? A comparative historical perspective

Abstract

It is often believed that the Olympic Games have become more migratory. The number of Olympic athletes representing countries in which they weren’t born is thought to be on the rise. It should, however, be noted that migration in the context of sports is hardly a new phenomenon. In this paper we hypothesise that, as a reflection of global migration patterns and trends, the number of foreign-born Olympians hasn’t necessarily increased in all countries. Furthermore, it was expected that the direction of Olympic migration has changed and that foreign athletes increasingly come from a more diverse palette of countries. We conducted an analysis of approximately 40,000 participants from 11 countries who participated in the Summer Games between 1948 and 2012. The selected countries have different histories of migration and cover the distinction between ‘nations of immigrants’ (Australia, Canada, United States), ‘countries of immigration’ (France, Great Britain, Netherlands, Sweden), ‘latecomers to immigration’ (Italy, Spain) and, what we coin, ‘former countries of immigration’ (Argentina, Brazil). We conclude that the Olympic Games indeed have not become inherently more migratory. Rather, the direction of Olympic migration has changed and most teams have become more diverse. Olympic migration is thus primarily a reflection of global migration patterns instead of a discontinuity with the past.

Has the World Cup become more migratory? A comparative history of foreign-born players in national football teams, c. 1930-2018

“…Where the relative share of foreign-born footballers between the editions of 1994 and 1998 almost doubledfrom nearly 6% in 1994 to more than 10% in 1998thereafter the percentages of foreign-born footballers, usually, continues to be above the 8%. This upward trend is in line with liberalisation processes that relaxed citizenship regimes since the 1980s and seems to resemble migratory patterns in the Olympics (Jansen et al, 2018;Jansen & Engbersen, 2017). Interestingly, with nearly 6,5%, the 2018 World Cup shows a slight decrease in the percentage of foreign-born players, where we would have expected a further growth in the number of foreign-born footballers in the selected national teams based on international migration patterns.…”

“…When contextualising our data, we observed ebb and flow movements within the volume of foreign-born footballers at the World Cup. In recent decades, a clear overall upward trend appears in this volume which reflects broader historical trends in international migration and historical citizenship regimes (Czaika & de Haas, 2014;Jansen & Engbersen, 2017). Obviously, differences in the number of foreign-born players exist between (i) the editions of the World Cup and (ii) within national football teams.…”

“…For the selected World Cups, the average D-value increased from 0.881 in 1934 to 0.930 in 2014; an increase of more than 5% in terms of players' countries of origin. This over time increase in diversity reflects wider trends in international migration (Castels et al, 2014;Czaika & de Haas, 2014;Jansen & Engbersen, 2017). It is in this respect interesting that, with 0.800, the D-value for the 1962 edition lies below the one of 1934.…”

“…This means that either national teams do not have selected any foreign-born players (1)all footballers are born in the country they representor, in the case of 0, that foreign-born footballer(s) in a national team originate from a single other country. We calculated the D-values of foreign-born footballers for three World Cup editions: 1934, 1962 We selected these editions because (i) they are spread out over a long time and, therefore, might illustrate how diversity in terms of players' country of origin has developed over time; either remaining (fairly) stable or changing substantially (Lanfranchi & Taylor, 2001;Taylor, 2006), and (ii) it allows us to compare the football-related diversity outcomes with changes in the diversification of immigration in general and to the typologies of (im)migration histories (Czaika & de Haas, 2014;Jansen & Engbersen, 2017).…”

Nationality swapping in the Olympic field: towards the marketization of citizenship?

“…between athletes living in their new countries for more than five years and those with parents native to the new county). Impediments to the study of nationality changes have led prior studies (Horowitz and McDaniel 2015;Jansen and Engbersen 2017) to conclude that the only feasible alternative is to rely on secondary sources. Both studies draw on information provided by Sports Reference LLC, being the only source that offers an overview of athletes (including their countries of birth) who have participated in the Summer Olympic Games.…”