Women, soccer and transnational migration

Estimated participation figures of almost 30 million worldwide make soccer the most prominent team sport amongst girls and women. However, making a living as a female player is only deemed possible in approximately 20 out of around 150 FIFA-listed women’s soccer countries. This has led to a situation where highly skilled sports women have to migrate from their homelands to find employment with a professional team. Women, Soccer and Transnational Migration represents a substantial contribution to our knowledge on the development of women’s soccer, to research into sports labor migration and sport and globalization more broadly. The book consists of three parts. Firstly, it provides an overview and an analysis of migration in women’s soccer from its earliest forms until now. It then presents several case studies, delivered by scholars from around the world, illustrating how female players are increasingly being drawn to the USA, Northern Europe and Scandinavia due to their ability to support professional leagues. Finally, all the themes and patterns of these case studies are drawn together to be able to compare and contrast migration in women’s soccer to sport migration and globalization more broadly. This study not only makes recommendations for future researchers, but may also serve as an important source of information for those in charge of policy. As such, it is essential reading for students, lecturers, researchers and practitioners involved in sports migration and women’s sport.

Part I
Globalization, migration and women’s soccer: State of the art, history and current patterns, 1

1 Introduction: Globalization, sports labor migration and women’s mobilities, 3
Sine Agergaard, Nina Clara Tiesler

2 ‘Soccer matters very much, every day’: Player migration and motivation in professional women’s soccer, 20
Jean Williams

3 Current fluxes in women’s soccer migration: Towards an understanding of the circularity of athletic mobility and skills-exchange, 33
Sine Agergaard, Nina Clara Tiesler

Part II
Women’s soccer across the globe: Case studies of migratory flows and experiences, 51

4 The continental drift to a zone of prestige: Women’s soccer migration to the US NCAA Division I 2000–2010, 53
Sara Booth, Katie Liston

5 Student athletic migration from Trinidad and Tobago: The case of women’s soccer, 73
Roy McCree

6 New frontiers: The transnational circulation of Brazil’s women soccer players, 87
Carmen Rial

7 International migration of Japanese women in world soccer, 103
Yoshio Takahashi

8 Leaving the core? The emigration of Scandinavian women soccer players, 118
Vera Lucia Botelho, Bente Ovedie Skogvang

9 Momentous spark or enduring enthusiasm? The 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup and its impact on players’ mobility and on the popularity of women’s soccer in Germany, 141
Gerturd Pfister, Marie-Luise Klein e Nina Clara Tiesler

Part III
Developing transnational perspectives on sports migration: A conceptual framework, 161

10 On mobility and visibility in women’s soccer: Theorizing an alternative approach to sport migration, 163
Thomas F. Carter

11 Bringing gender into sports labour migration research: Gendered geographies of power in African women’s soccer migration, 177
Mari Haugaa Engh

12 The typology of athletic migrants revisited: Transnational settlers, sojourners and mobiles, 193
Sine Agergaard, Vera Lucia Botelho e Nina Clara Tiesler

Index, 218