The experience of migration for Brazilian football players

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to show how the phenomenon of migration in sports is affecting Brazilian football players. This paper aims to provide a theoretical and empirical analysis of the migration experience for those players and address how they construct a hybrid and ambiguous identity about themselves and their "family". Discourses on the experience of migration are fraught with cultural and political anxieties. The classic reactionary position of middle-class Western societies, where 'white' is assumed to be the norm, is to agonize over how black people can be assimilated or accommodated; how they can bring economic impetus but not tempt the racist response. Academic studies do not necessarily repeat this fretful construction, but instead focus critical insight upon the struggles of the migrant. We argue the stereotyped versions of Brazilian football players, combined with the structural opportunities, can be seen as a good contrast with other forms of sport migration

An examination of the migratory transition of elite young European soccer players to the English Premier League

“…The concern also lies with the impact migration can have on the individual. For some, the process of migration may be enjoyable and unproblematic, whereas others may encounter multiple challenging life experiences (including alien weather conditions and styles of play) (see de Vasconcellos Ribeiro & Dimeo, 2009;Magee & Sugden, 2002). Elliott and Weedon (2010) and Weedon (2011) contend that the acquisition of foreign talent enhances the developmental context among indigenous players and adds to a richer culture in which all players are able to learn and exchange knowledge.…”

“…The increased movement of foreign players has also been linked to the stifling of young player progression in both the host and donor countries. For example, this movement of talent can cause deskilling of a country's talent pool (Darby, 2000(Darby, , 2007a(Darby, , 2007bde Vasconcellos Ribeiro & Dimeo, 2009;Maguire 2004). Deskilling refers to the more developed soccer countries or core states (e.g.…”

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

“…They have just recently started to employ this method of selecting their representative footballers (Helms, 2018;Pew Research Center, 2015). Second, besides nationalist sentiments on national football teams, the low numbers of foreign-born players reflect the stereotyped image of the exceptional football skills of South American footballers (de Vasconcellos Ribeiro & Dimeo, 2009). Argentina and Uruguay, for example, both selected one Spanish-born player in 1930, and their 2010, 2014 and 2018 squads only included one foreign-born player.…”

Brazil, politics, the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup

“…Anthropologists, historians, human geographers, political scientists and sociologists, amongst other scholars, have begun to investigate a number of recurring topics that enable us to begin to understand these and other developments in South America. Football, by far and away the most popular sport throughout South America, features in articles about fans, elite migrant labour, professional organizations and globalization (Gordon and Helal, 2001;Raspaud and Bastos, 2013;Ribeiro and Dimeo, 2009). Alvito (2007) notes for example that football in Brazil has faced the twin challenges of commercialization and mediatization for at least the past 30 years.…”