Post-playing careers of Irish-born footballers in England, 1945–2010

“After the Dust Settles”: Foucauldian Narratives of Retired Athletes' “Re-orientation” to Exercise

“…While sport sociologists also share these concerns (Mihovilovic, 1968;Coakley, 1992), their framing of sporting transition and retirement issues and the problem-solving approaches they draw upon differ somewhat. For example, removal from a "sports work" space has been identified as extremely challenging (Curran, 2015) and, more recently, has been articulated as a social rather than isolated process (Hickey and Roderick, 2017;Stamp et al, 2021), that includes an unpredictable, paradoxical fluctuation between painful and liberating emotions (Jones and Denison, 2017).…”

“…Despite decades of research into this phenomenon, challenging experiences continue to be reported for those managing their lives "postsport" (see the systematic reviews of Park et al, 2013;Fuller, 2014;Barth et al, 2020). For instance, studies from across the globe point to repeated examples of transitional challenges amongst former elite level Association football (soccer) players (Curran, 2015;Stamp et al, 2021), as well as collegiate (Barcza-Renner et al, 2020), and Olympic level track and field athletes (Ungerleider, 1997). Common problems reported by retired athletes include but are not limited to: difficulty forming alternative identities away from sport (Carless and Douglas, 2009), depression, suicide, substance abuse, and disordered eating (see systematic review by Fuller, 2014).…”

Migrant athletes and the transformation of physical capital. Spatial and temporal dynamics in West African footballers’ approaches to post-careers

“…Much of the growing body of sociological studies on post-career transitions and experiences has targeted migrant and ethnic minority athletes in Western contexts (see Campbell, 2020;Curran, 2015;Ungruhe & Agergaard, 2020a). These studies have primarily engaged with specific (groups of) athletes' reasons for career ending and the question of their occupational and social mobility amidst political, economic and legal structures and relations of power in and beyond sports in destination settings.…”

Challenge and relief: A Foucauldian disciplinary analysis of retirement from professional association football in the United Kingdom

“…In 2013 the Professional Football Association (PFA) in Britain revealed that currently there are over 150 former male professional football players in the British prison system. Men’s professional football also has a history of depression and suicide among current and former players (Curran, 2015; Turner et al, 2000). For example, in 2014, Clarke Carlisle, a former English Premier League footballer and the former head of the PFA, attempted to take his own life.…”

“…For example, according to Christensen (2009) and Cushion and Jones (2006), a working footballer’s body is identified, then exposed to a disciplinary lifestyle that targets and transforms his/her body to produce exceptional and consistent athletic performances. Despite this acknowledgement that football is a highly disciplinary space, according to Curran (2015) and Roderick (2006), for the working footballer, the long-term effects of living this lifestyle are largely unknown. Therefore, in an effort to understand how the disciplinary nature of football, and the way in which players’ bodies are transformed and made useful in specific ways, might impact players’ retirement experiences, we interviewed 25 British retired professional male players about their life in and out of football.…”