Birkbeck Sport Business Centre Research Paper Series Labour Market Migration in European Football
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ISSN: 1756-8811 Birkbeck Sport Business Centre Research Paper Series Labour Market Migration in European Football: Key Issues and Challenges Conference Proceedings from the Feet-Drain Conference hosted by the Birkbeck Sport Business Centre in May 2008 Dr Geoff Walters and Giambattista Rossi (Eds.) Birkbeck, University of London Volume 2, Number 2, August 2009 Copyright © with the individual authors Contents Page Author Biographies 3 Editorial 6 Geoff Walters and Giambattista Rossi The Economic Effects of ‘Muscle Drain’ in Sport 9 Wladimir Andreff Labour Market Migration to the Five Major Leagues 32 in European Football: The Impact on National Team Selection Raffaele Poli Meltdown: The Nationality of Premier League Players 51 and the Future of English Football Gordon Taylor ‘Feet-Drain’ or ‘Feet-Exchange’?: The Effects of Foreign 71 Player Involvement in the Premier Academy League Richard Elliott The Effects of ‘Feet Drain’ on the Italian Football Academy 88 System Luca Ferrari, Fillipo Ricci, Giambattista Rossi and Tommaso Tamburino The ‘DNC’ Transfer System - a New Transfer System for the Football Industry 129 Jean-Marc Guillou Ghanaian Football Labour Migration: Preliminary Observations 149 Paul Darby 2 Author Biographies Wladimir Andreff, Professor of Economics, University of Paris and Honorary President of the International Association of Sport Economists Professor Andreff is one of the foremost sport economists in Europe. He has held prestigious positions including the President of the International Association of Sport Economists between 2002 and 2005, and he is currently the President of the French Economic Association. He has published extensively in the economics of sports including 90 articles and five books and is a member of the editorial board of European Sport Management Quarterly, the Journal of Sports Economics, The International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing, and The Journal of Sport Management. Paul Darby, Senior Lecturer, University of Ulster at Jordanstown Paul is Senior Lecturer in Sport and Exercise at the University of Ulster. He has published on issues relating to the following; the role of Gaelic games in the lives of the Irish diaspora in North America; African football labour migration to Europe; Africa and the politics of FIFA/world football; football related disasters; sport and the Irish. At present he is working on two projects, one funded by the British Academy on Gaelic games in the United States and the other, supported by a grant from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) on sports labour migration. Richard Elliott, Senior Lecturer, Southampton Solent University Richard is Senior Lecturer at Southampton Solent University where he contributes to the internationally recognised Football Studies degree programmes. Richard's research focuses on the area of athletic migration. Specifically, it examines the similarities between highly skilled workers in sport, and other highly skilled professions. Richard is currently working with The Premier League to examine dimensions of foreign player involvement in the Premier Academy League. He also acts as an expert contact for the Football Association. Luca Ferrari, attorney at law, CBA Studio Legale e Tributario Luca is a corporate lawyer and a partner of Italian Law Firm CBA where he is head of the Sports and Media Department. As a sports lawyer, Luca deals with regulatory and disciplinary issues, labour and commercial arbitration, player contracts and player transfers. During the decade in which he has gained legal experience in the field of professional football, he has represented clubs, players, coaches and agents in a variety of national and international transactions. Jean-Marc Guillou, Founder, JMG Academy Jean-Marc is a former French international, winning 19 caps, including playing in the 1978 World Cup in Argentina. After his playing career ended, Jean- 3 Marc managed a number of club sides in France and Switzerland. He was responsible for the creation of the Abidjan football school, eventually becoming the manager, technical director and trainer of ASEC Abidjan in the Ivory Coast. Jean-Marc left ASEC to become the Sporting Director at Beveren. Most recently, Jean-Marc has founded the JMG Academies in the Ivory Coast, Madagascar, and Bangkok. Raffaele Poli, Researcher at the University of Neuchatel, Geography Institute and International Centre for Sport Studies (CIES) Raffaele is a geographer and sociologist, and has been employed as a scientific collaborator by the CIES since November 2002. He is also a teaching assistant at the Institute of Geography in the University of Neuchâtel. He has published extensively on the football labour market and is one of the editors of the Annual Review of the European Football Players Labour Market published by the CIES. Fillipo Ricci, Spanish correspondent for the Gazzetta dello Sport Filippo began working as a journalist focusing exclusively on African football. Together with Mark Gleeson and Frank Simon, he is considered one of the foremost experts on African football. Since 2006 he has been working in Madrid as the Spanish correspondent for the Gazzetta dello Sport. His last edited work “Scusate il ritardo” which focused on his experiences of African football was published in English in 2008. Giambattistta Rossi, Birkbeck, University of London Giambattista has been a PhD student at Birkbeck since 2006. Previously, he studied for a degree in Economics at the Universita' Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan before completing an MSc in Sport Studies at the University of Stirling, Scotland. His PhD research focuses on the economic value of professional football players determined during transfer or renewal negotiations. The methodology is based on regression analysis of a panel database containing economic and performance data from Italian Serie A football players. Tommaso Tamburino, Withers LLP Tommaso graduated in law at the University of Padova in 2006, with a thesis focusing on European Union law. He has since been practicing in international commercial law and community law, with a significant focus on issues in relation to sport law. He currently works for the law firm Withers LLP. Gordon Taylor, Chief Executive, The Professional Footballers‟ Association Gordon began his career as a professional footballer with Bolton Wanderers in the 1960‟s, playing over 250 games and scoring over 50 goals. He also played for Birmingham City, Blackburn Rovers, Vancouver Whitecaps and 4 Bury. His involvement with the Professional Footballers‟ Association began in 1972 when he joined the management committee. In 1978 he was appointed chairman, and after retiring from playing in 1980, he was appointed as Secretary/Chief Executive of the union in 1981. He was appointed President of FIFPro in 1992 and has served as the Chairman of the Football Foundation Community and Education Panel and as a member of the FIFA Football Committee. In 2008 Gordon received an OBE for his services to sport. Geoff Walters, Lecturer in Management, Birkbeck, University of London Geoff is a Lecturer in Management at Birkbeck, University of London and a member of the Birkbeck Sport Business Centre. A graduate of Lancaster University and the University of Manchester, he completed a PhD at Birkbeck in 2007 looking at corporate governance in the football industry. He was previously a member of the Football Governance Research Centre and co- author of the annual State of the Game publications. His current research focuses on governance and regulation in sport and corporate social responsibility. 5 Editorial Geoff Walters and Giambattista Rossi Birkbeck, University of London This collection of articles is the result of a conference on labour market migration held at Birkbeck, University of London in May 2008. The specific focus of the conference was to address relevant issues around the subject of „feet-drain‟, a concept that has recently been coined to describe the migration of footballers from underdeveloped nations to developed nations. In particular, the focus of the conference was on understanding different perspectives surrounding the migration of professional footballers, including clubs, players, and youth players from within countries that are net importers of players to countries where players leave to pursue opportunities elsewhere. The concept of „feet-drain‟ is particularly pertinent in regard to the European football industry where labour migration is a key issue. Since the Bosman ruling in 1995, there has been a marked rise in the number of players from outside the EU that have migrated to the top football nations in Western Europe, particularly England, Spain, Italy, Germany and France. In particular, there has been an increase in the number of African and South American players playing in Europe. A number of factors underpin this labour market development. From the perspective of Western European football clubs, it is far less expensive to recruit players from Eastern Europe, Africa and South America compared to more established football nations in Europe. There also exists the possibility of selling a player at a later stage in their career and realising significant capital gains. As a result, in recent years many European football clubs have extended and developed highly intricate networks with which to search for talented players on a global scale. This search has increasingly been focused not only on professional players but also on youth players showing the potential for future development. As such, many