CROSSING THE ATLANTIC FROM FOOTBALL TO SOCCER: PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS ON THE MIGRATIONS OF ENGLISH PLAYERS AND THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER

CROSSING THE ATLANTIC FROM FOOTBALL TOSOCCER: PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS ONTHE MIGRATIONS OF ENGLISH PLAYERSAND THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OFMAJOR LEAGUE SOCCERwusa_361 557..570

Richard Elliott and John Harris

In January, 2007 it was announced that England international David Beckham, one of the most famousfootballers in the world, would join the Los Angeles Galaxy in the U.S. This announcement brought globalmedia attention for Major League Soccer (MLS) and suggestions that Beckham’s signing would be thelaunch pad for the further development of the professional game in the country. Some four years afterBeckham’s arrival, this article assesses the positioning of MLS and looks at the current standing of the leaguein relation to labor migration patterns and internationalization by focusing specifically on the place ofEnglish players in this league. It attempts to provide an overview of the positioning of the league within aninternational context and also explores the interrelationship between two nations where football means quitedifferent things. The work contributes to research on athletic migration and the internationalization ofsports labor in the U.S. by teasing out some of the key issues shaping the contemporary soccer product.

Introduction

Research into athletic labor migration has developed markedly over the pasttwo decades. Scholars have analyzed a broad range of sporting activities andprovided insights into the place of sport in a variety of cultural contexts (see Baleand Maguire 1994; Maguire and Falcous 2011). Within the broader area ofathletic labor migration, much of the research has examined movements withinassociation football, generally regarded as the global sport par excellence (seeespecially, Darby 2007; Elliott and Weedon 2010; Giulianotti 1999; Giulianottiand Robertson 2009; Lanfranchi and Taylor 2001; Magee and Sugden 2002;Maguire and Pearton 2000; Maguire and Stead 1998; McGovern 2002; Weedon2011). Some of the research published in this area has examined the motivationsand experiences of players and their transition from and to different countries.This work has helped to develop our understanding of migration patterns andthe shifts in football’s world order. There has been significant change in foot-ball across the world through the increased intensification of global flows

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The Journal of Labor and Society

WorkingUSA: The Journal of Labor and Society · 1089-7011 · Volume 14 · December 2011 · pp. 557–570© The Authors

WorkingUSA: The Journal of Labor and Society © 2011 Immanuel Ness and Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

(Giulianotti 1999; Giulianotti and Robertson 2009). In the English PremierLeague, for example, where just eleven foreign players started games at thebeginning of its inaugural 1992/1993 season, the upsurge in foreign playerrepresentation across Premier League clubs to 358 registered players in season2008/2009 (Rollin and Rollin 2009) is evidence of the ever-increasing promi-nence of migration in twenty-first century football. During this period, there hasalso been a marked increase in the number of non-English coaches and manag-ers in the league and a more recent trend of overseas ownership of major clubs.A number of American investors have assumed ownership of these teams inrecent years.

Within this article. we look at some aspects of labor migration in associationfootball (soccer) and provide some preliminary observations focusing on playersmoving from England to the U.S. to play in MLS. This is important becausewhile the work referred to above demonstrates that research is ongoing in thearea, there has been less work undertaken which has examined labor migrationpatterns into U.S. sport. This is due, in part, to the somewhat insular nature ofsport in the U.S. and the popularity of (American) football which is playedwithin national borders. At both the collegiate and the professional level, thisform of football assumes a hegemonic place in the landscape and casts a signifi-cant shadow over all other sports (Markovits and Rensmann 2010).

This work, however, unlike much of the research published on labor migra-tion, does not encompass the views of the players themselves but offers an initialoverview of the subject and aims to serve as a point of departure for future workin the area. Of course, future research into professional soccer in the U.S. shouldexamine the motivations and experiences of the athletes and look at their lifeworlds and the ways in which they understand the migration process. However,before research of that nature is undertaken, it is useful to set out some prelimi-nary observations with respect to labor migration as it relates to U.S. sport, andspecifically, Major League Soccer (MLS).

Labor Migration and Sport

In the contemporary sporting culture, athletic labor flows traverse geo-graphical, political, cultural, ethnic, and economic boundaries. These flows havedeveloped steadily with the increasing globalization of elite level sports. One ofthe consequences of the increased global development of athletic migration isthat patterns of athletic labor flow between host and donor countries can bemore easily identified (Bale 1991; Maguire 1999). Yet, it is also important to notethat the movement of athletic labor from a donor to a host country variesdepending upon the sport and the particular location of that sport within a givenlocale. Movement, in a targeted and specific manner is being increasingly facili-tated in some sports through a series of “talent pipelines” (Maguire et al. 2002)where links (formal and less formal) are developed and foster a series of move-ments between places. The identification of talent pipelines can be used to help

558 WORKINGUSA: THE JOURNAL OF LABOR AND SOCIETY

make sense of athletic migration, by observing the transitory patterns that existglobally in the movement of athletic labor.

In an attempt to frame the manner in which athletic migrants engage withthe migration experience, Maguire (1996) and Magee and Sugden (2002) havedeveloped typologies of sport labor migration. Initially developed by Maguire(1996), the movement of athletes has been contextualized within a model builtupon five overlapping categories, which frame the complex web of multidirec-tional processes. Maguire argues that the migration experience can be charac-terized by a mix of overlapping processes exemplified by what he calls pioneertype migrants, mercenaries, nomadic cosmopolitans, settlers, and returnees. Morerecently, Magee and Sugden (2002) extended Maguire’s initial typology byintroducing the categories of ambitionist, exile, and expelled. Their critique ofMaguire’s (1996) work led to some debate and contention regarding the use oftypologies to describe these patterns. However, it is important to acknowledgethe contribution of these works to the study of sports labor migration and theirspecific use in helping to make sense of the movements of English soccer playersplying their trade in the U.S.

The typologies of sport labor migration show that the motivations andexperiences of athletic migrants vary considerably. The migration experience iscontoured by a series of complex interdependent processes. Politics, history,economics, geography, and culture can all be seen to be influential in determin-ing both the motivations of athletic migrants and in affecting the ways in whichthey experience the migration process. It is not, therefore, possible to fullycapture the complexities of athletic migrant movements by concluding thatmigration occurs as the result of any single causal factor. Rather, to produce amore adequate account, a number of interdependent processes must be consid-ered to be at work. Here, it is important to firmly locate these migration patternswithin and around an understanding of the social and cultural locatedness of thesport within any given context. These processes permeate the specific migratoryexperience and the typologies of sport labor migration.

It becomes clear from an examination of existing research in the area ofglobal athletic migration that one of the most significant areas of analysis hasbeen the study of what stimulates athletes to seek employment opportunitiesoutside of their own nation. Many studies examining global athletic labormigration in association football have sought to make sense of the globalmovement of workers by examining this issue (see for example Darby 2007;Magee and Sugden 2002; Maguire and Stead 1998; Molnar 2006). When con-sidering the migration of athletic labor globally, it is important to establish aframework that moves beyond monocausal explanations to capture the moti-vations of the migrant (Maguire 1996). In this respect, while some athleticmigrants can be seen to be more significantly influenced by financial gain, theprocess of “following the money” (Maguire and Pearton 2000, 761) isinterconnected with a broader series of processes, which reflect political, his-torical, cultural, and geographical patterns. The movement of athleticmigrants does not always occur toward what one might call the “core sport

559ELLIOTT AND HARRIS: MIGRATION OF ENGLISH PLAYERS TO MLS

economies.” Rather, migration occurs on a number of levels, and for a numberof reasons.

Research examining the movement of players into English football has shownthat migratory movements are not always limited to economic factors (Magee andSugden 2002; Maguire and Stead 1998). For example, Nordic/Scandinavianmigrants have been shown to seek out a professional sporting experience, anintensity of commitment, and the desire to test their abilities at the highest level.These players were, arguably, more intensely motivated by personal developmentthan migrants from other countries. The motivations of Hungarian migrants havebeen shown to be similar (Molnar 2006). The desire to seek out new challenges,to develop, and to secure better working conditions were all cited as significantfactors influencing their decision to migrate. For these migrants, their migrationrepresented a personal investment, rather than simply a financial one. Whencoupled with the work of Magee and Sugden (2002), which argues that themigration of footballers occurs, on occasion, forcibly (and not by choice), thecomplexity of migrant motivation in the game becomes clearer.

The complexity of migrant motivation can also be linked to a lack ofopportunity for career development in an athlete’s home nation. The lack ofprofessional opportunity may push the athlete from their home nation, while thelure of a specific location may pull them in a particular direction whether oncultural or economic grounds. For some American (male) soccer players duringthe 1980s and 1990s, this was certainly the case as few opportunities existed todevelop a professional career given that no professional league existed in theU.S. between 1984 and 1996. In other (American) sports however, outwardmigration occurs for different reasons. Rather than the lack of professionalopportunities, the production, or overproduction, of sports labor acts as a pushfactor (Miller et al. 2003). In certain sports, this means that only those athletesof the highest caliber are able to secure professional playing opportunities. Theremaining athletes then flood into the global market place seeking to secureprofessional employment at a level commensurate with their abilities. The nextpart of the article examines these movements in an attempt to better locate theanalysis that follows and the observations concerning the movement of Englishsoccer players to MLS.

Migration Out of the American Sporting Space

It can be argued that the North American migration of basketball and icehockey players into European leagues is expressive of a blend of economic,cultural, ethnic, and political factors, which structure seemingly contradictorymigratory dynamics when considered through the lens of the typologies of sportlabor migration. For example, while players migrating to the more economicallypowerful leagues of mainland Europe may be more highly motivated by short-term financial gains, and thus more mercenary in their orientations, NorthAmerican migration to England, it can be argued, occurs for different reasons. Inthe English context, and given the peripheral economic and cultural positions


that the sports occupy, migration from North America tends to involve lesserability pioneer type migrants seeking to promote their sports in underdevelopedsports cultures, or ambitionist migrants who would otherwise struggle to findprofessional playing opportunities in the U.S. or in the more established Euro-pean leagues (Elliott and Maguire 2008; Maguire 1988, 1996). It is also possibleto argue that cultural factors such as language similarity affect the migrationpatterns, and we can see evidence of this when looking at the movements ofworkers in a range of sports across the world. This has certainly been observedas being the case in ice hockey where Maguire (1996) argues that the migrationof French-Canadian ice hockey players to French-speaking countries is as muchthe result of cultural similarity as it is of the more commonly associated eco-nomic factors. Genest’s (1994) work supports such an explanation for migratorymovements from Canada to Europe in ice hockey. A similar rationale could beapplied to American soccer players moving to leagues’ outside of the U.S.;particularly those in England.

In the U.S., MLS is quite different from the sports leagues that dominatethe American sporting space as the National Basketball Association (NBA),National Football League (NFL), National Hockey League (NHL), andMajor League Baseball (MLB) define themselves as the best leagues in theworld in their respective sports. Here, the recent (and increasing) inwardmigration of non-American athletes may negatively impact upon the popular-ity of activities such as basketball and baseball (Brown 2005). After the collapseof the North American Soccer League (NASL) in 1984, there was no profes-sional soccer league in the U.S. until MLS’ formation in 1996. The decisionto award the 1994 World Cup Finals to the U.S. was a contentious one, andthe Federation Internationale de Football Associations (FIFA) insisted that aprofessional league would have to be developed in the country as part of thisagreement. This then gave leading U.S. players the chance to play profession-ally in their home country, but even since the development of MLS, manymembers of the U.S. national team have moved abroad to further their careersand compete at a higher level. The 2006 U.S. squad that competed in theWorld Cup finals in Germany included players who were at the timeemployed by clubs in Belgium, England, Germany, and Holland. Players suchas Brian McBride and Kasey Keller have enjoyed long and successful careers insome of the top leagues in Europe. The U.S. roster for the 2010 World Cupfinals in South Africa included a number of players registered with Englishclubs including all three of the goalkeepers in the squad.

Of course, it is also important to highlight once again that patterns ofmigration can differ markedly across sports depending upon the status and(re)positioning of sport in different places. On this basis, while outward migra-tion has been common for American athletes in some sports, migrations intoAmerican leagues’ have been less common, and in some cases, met withresistance.


Migration into the American Sporting Space

Much of the published work on labor migration in sport has examined theexperiences of athletes who have moved to develop their skills and compete at ahigher level than in their home country. Much of the work on soccer hascertainly focused on this aspect (e.g., Darby 2007; Magee and Sugden 2002;Maguire and Stead 1998; Molnar 2006). Yet for many soccer players moving tothe U.S., we would suggest, is not necessarily a case of moving into a higher-levelleague but often more a case of moving to a league more commensurate withtheir level of ability.

We are witnessing an increased internationalization of some of the mosthigh profile American sports. Baseball has become more “internationalized” inrecent years both through the increase in non-nationals competing in MLB andalso with the development of the World Baseball Classic in 2006 (Klein 2006).As MLB Commissioner Bud Selig noted, this development was more importantfor promoting the sport outside of the U.S. than it was for the domestic game(Verducci 2005). The 2007, NBA finals saw athletes from nine different coun-tries compete in the match-up between the San Antonio Spurs and ClevelandCavaliers. Brown (2005) has noted how television-viewing figures for basketballand baseball have both declined alongside an increase in the number of non-American players in the leagues. During this same period, sports considered tobe distinctly American or those perceived to have retained their Americanidentity (such as American football and National Association for Stock Car AutoRacing [NASCAR]) did not witness such a change in viewing figures. Soccer hasstruggled to be accepted into the professional sporting space of the country andhas often been viewed as a communist and/or foreign activity (Delgado 1997;Markovits and Hellerman 2001).

Yet here, it is worth reflecting on the fact that we should not fall too easilyinto a simplistic delineation of labeling any place. While it may have been acountry built on immigration, the story of professional sport in the U.S. is oneof much insularity. While more recent studies of the major professional sportswould point to the large number of international players as evidence of a recentand increased globalization of these activities (e.g., Klein 2006), there is a longhistory of migration into U.S. soccer. The American Soccer League in the1920s, for example, included a number of British imports (Wangerin 2008). It isalso worth recalling that many of the coaches of NASL teams in the 1970s werefrom England and other parts of Britain. These two examples show that therehas always been a strong English and/or British presence in professional soccerwithin the U.S.

It seems a pertinent time to consider the perceived “foreign” label attachedto the world’s most popular sport in the U.S. context for in the post 9/11 world,there is much discussion and debate concerning the country’s place in the globalworld order. While it is beyond the scope of this article to engage in any detailedanalysis of wider political issues, it is important to note that in recent years, therehas been a marked increase in anti-American feeling (see Markovits 2006; Sardar


and Davies 2002), which in turn has led to a fierce promotion of perceived“American” values and ideals within the country. For quite some time, acommon theme in promoting this American identity and difference has been toattack the sport of soccer (Waldstein and Wagg 1995; Wangerin 2008). Thesport exists as a somewhat marginal activity at the professional level despite thefact that it is an incredibly popular recreational pursuit, and of course the veryname of the sport points to the fact that another code of football exists. So whilethe sport of (association) football serves as an important part of a masculineidentity and working-class culture across the globe (Giulianotti 1999; Giulian-otti and Robertson 2009), in the U.S. it is more of a women’s game and alsoviewed as a suburban activity (Andrews 1999; Markovits and Hellerman 2001).Before moving on to look at the place of English players in MLS, we brieflyoutline the positioning of soccer in the U.S. and provide a brief analysis ofprevious attempts to develop the professional game there.

The Curious Role of U.S. Soccer in World Football

Allison (2005) noted the U.S.’ “curious role in world sport” where domesticcompetitions achieve a certain primacy and international competition is notconsidered as important in the most popular sports. Markovits and Hellerman(2001) have written on soccer and “American exceptionalism” where the notionof American exceptionalism in the global order is also reflected in the sportsspace of the nation. The establishment of this sports space in the late 1800s andearly part of the twentieth century was influenced by a desire to “Americanize”sports introduced from Britain and mark the country as being distinct anddifferent from the old world. One of their key points is that soccer, while beingan immensely popular activity (what people do), has failed to move into culture(what people talk about). Collins (2006) offers a measured overview of thepositioning of soccer in contemporary U.S. society. Here it is noted that therehas been a marked growth in the numbers playing the game although it is alsoimportant to note that much of this growth is in the number of female players.In this sense, as Markovits and Hellerman (2001) have suggested, the success ofwomen’s soccer in the U.S., where the national team have won Olympic Gamestitles and World Cups, is yet another form of American exceptionalism.

Foer’s (2004) treatise of football and globalization points to the distinct placeof professional soccer in the U.S. and is a useful text in locating the sport in aninternational context. Wangerin (2008) provides a detailed account of “soccer ina football world” that offers interesting insights into the uneven development ofthe sport. Within both accounts, the development of MLS signifies an importantmarker in the (re)positioning of the game within the wider sporting and culturallandscape. MLS, formed following the hosting of the 1994 World Cup finals inthe U.S., is the most significant attempt to develop the professional game in theU.S. since the days of the NASL, which operated from 1968 to 1984.

Part of NASL’s strategy to develop the sport occurred through the signingof some of the most well-known players in the world. At the height of NASL’s


popularity, Franz Beckenbaur (West Germany), George Best (NorthernIreland), Bobby Moore (England), and Pele (Brazil), all played in the league. Yet,these players were all at the end of their careers, and NASL gained a reputationas a kind of “football graveyard” for ageing mercenaries. Pele stated that hehoped to make soccer as big as baseball and (American) football (Satterlee 2001).Yet, this was too big a task even for the man widely regarded as the greatestplayer of all time.

On one level, it is felt that Pele had failed as the NASL folded, and of course,soccer never ascended to the status of the major sports in the U.S. Yet, bylooking at the number of players now registered in youth leagues and the manyother developments in the game, it could be argued that this was Pele’s reallegacy and that he played a significant role in increasing the popularity andprofiling of the sport (Satterlee 2001). Some three decades later, MLS officialswere again embarking upon a strategy of signing high profile players such asGermany’s national captain Lothar Matthaus and Mexico’s Luis Hernandez.Such signings drew criticism and prompted Markovits and Hellerman (2001) tosuggest that “the league is dangerously approaching the strategy pursued byNASL with such adverse consequences for the game’s development at the toplevel in the United States” (188). If these types of signings were reminiscent ofthe dark days of NASL, then the signing of arguably the most famous player inthe modern game brought with it numerous comparisons with the signing ofPele some three decades before (Ross 2007). While it was the signing of DavidBeckham that brought international media attention to soccer in the U.S., andsaw a brief period whereby the sport became an important news story within thecountry, his case (although somewhat “exceptional”) represents an interestingpoint of departure to consider the migration of athletes into this particularsporting space.

“One David Beckham . . .” Labor Migration to MLS

Beckham’s transfer was regarded by many to be a sign that MLS would nowcompete with other top leagues throughout the world (or perhaps more specifi-cally in Europe where football’s core economies are located). Yet, this ignoresthe fact that Beckham was signed because he is David Beckham, part of “BrandBeckham,” and that his is a unique case (Vincent, Hill, and Lee 2009; Wahl2009). In their work on masculinity, celebrity, and the “soccerati,” Cashmore andParker (2003) highlighted that there are any number of David Beckham’s in thatcelebrities are produced and consumed in a number of ways. Developing the titleof their article from a popular terrace chant aimed at players, they show how partof Beckham’s success is due to his ability to be many things to many people. Yetin terms of his positioning as a current/former international with one of theso-called elite soccer nations and his significance to MLS, there really is only oneDavid Beckham. No other players on MLS team rosters had anything closelyresembling his achievements that included domestic league titles in England andSpain, a European Champions League winner’s medal, and second place in the


World Player of the Year polls. Some commentators suggested that his signingwould pave the way for other high-profile soccer players to move to the U.S.although 18 months later, no other player of such a stature had arrived in MLS.Another eighteen months further on and other famous names are now part ofthe league highlighting that there may be evidence of a shift toward increasingthe quality of international imports. The former French international, ThierryHenry, joined the New York Red Bulls from Barcelona in Spain. Henry hadhimself experienced considerable success with Arsenal in England and in termsof trophies won was a more successful athlete than Beckham having also beenpart of World Cup and European Championship winning teams at the interna-tional level. Henry had made many trips to New York and had always expresseda desire to one day reside in that place (“Arsenal legend Thierry Henry ready torenew north London rivalry as he joins New York Red Bulls in time to faceTottenham,” Daily Mail 2010). Here, someone also described as a global staralongside Beckham (Simmons 2007) was now identified as an important figure inthe next stage of development.

Other English players appearing in MLS for the 2007 season, Beckham’sfirst in the league, included his former youth team colleague at ManchesterUnited, Terry Cooke, who joined the Colorado Rapids from Sheffield Wednes-day (England). No other English player in the league, apart from Beckham, hasplayed for the senior national team and many have no representative honors atthe international level. Other English-born players to have recently appeared inthe league include John Cunliffe who moved to the U.S. to study (and playsoccer) at Fort Lewis College (CO), Jason Griffiths (University of Kentucky toNew England Revolution), and Andy Dorman. Dorman was drafted by the NewEngland Revolution from Boston University but moved to Scotland at the endof 2007 and subsequently gained a Welsh cap hereby further highlighting themany layers underpinning athlete migration and identification. Bale’s (1991)research into the migration of international student athletes to the U.S. hasprovided interesting insights into the ways in which athletes are recruited toHigher Education institutions.

Of course, MLS only started some five years after Bale’s (1991) text waspublished. Bale’s study highlighted that collegiate soccer had a significantforeign presence and noted that “there has been something of a tradition ofimporting foreign recruits for the round-ball game” (Bale 1991, 55). It will beinteresting to see how many players migrate from England to the U.S. on asoccer scholarship and subsequently “settle” in the country to develop a profes-sional soccer career. The most recent MLS SuperDraft in 2010 included twoEnglishmen signing with MLS clubs direct from U.S. universities. WhereasAmerican football uses the collegiate game as a kind of “minor league” systemand recruits its athletes through these institutions, soccer is quite different. AnEnglish player would (usually) only sign up to a college scholarship in the U.S.if he was not good enough to develop a professional career in his home country.As Bale (1991, 56) also noted at the time “it is rare for top foreign professionalsto have been nurtured on, or even to have experienced, US college soccer.”


For a couple of seasons, perhaps the most recognizable name to Englishfootball fans, aside from Beckham, plying their trade in MLS was Danny Dichiowho toward the end of his career in England moved down the leagues and wasoften loaned out to a number of clubs. Dichio moved to Toronto FC and scoredthe first ever goal for the franchise in the 2007 season. In total, 29 players listedas English have appeared in MLS since the league started in 1996. The com-plexity of global sport means that this list does not include Darryl Powell who,although born in England and played the majority of his professional career inthe English leagues, represented the Jamaica national team so is listed as Jamai-can in all MLS data. To reflect the increased internationalization of the sport,there is also an increase in the number of non-English players who had spenttime in the English Premier League appearing in MLS. In addition to Henry,discussed above, his former Arsenal teammate Freddie Ljungberg had also madethe switch to MLS where the former Sweden captain has played for both SeattleSounders and Chicago Fire in the past two seasons.

Other players from the British Isles have also appeared on the rosters of teamsthroughout the league. The Welsh international, Carl Robinson, also appearedfor Toronto FC in their first year competing in MLS. Interestingly, Robinson wassaid to have taken a pay cut to play in MLS, and his decision was influenced byquality of life issues and the (suggested) lower cost of living in North Americawhen compared to the UK. Other British athletes to have played in MLS in recentyears include Paul Dalglish at Houston Dynamo (who moved back to Scotland)and fellow Scot Adam Moffat at Columbus Crew. Many of the players who appearin MLS are those who have been released by clubs in their home countries, and sofor them the league may be one of their few options to continue playingprofessionally. In this sense, some of the migration patterns to be found in MLSare similar to those found in the “American” sports played in the British Isles (e.g.,basketball and ice hockey) where players move overseas because they have failedto establish themselves in their home country’s sporting environment or wish toprolong a professional engagement with their sport toward the end of their career(see Elliott and Maguire 2008). NASL was seen as something of a “footballgraveyard” for ageing professionals after one last big payday before they retiredfrom the game. While it is doubtful that in contemporary times, players of thecaliber of Henry and Ljungberg make such a move solely for financial reasons,such movement represents an interesting subject and is certainly an area thatneeds to be looked at further for we know little about the experiences of athleticmigrants nearing the end of their sporting careers. Here, research beyond thestudy of sport may offer us valuable insights in extending research in this area andlooking at tracing the global exchange of labor (see Beaverstock 2004, 2005).

From this preliminary overview, we would suggest that three main groupingscan be identified to explain the movement of English players into MLS: First,those who moved to the U.S. to attend college and subsequently stayed to playprofessional soccer; second, players not deemed good enough by teams in theirhome country; and third, ageing players looking to prolong engagement withtheir sport at the end of their careers.


A look at the biographies and playing achievements of all Englishmen tohave played in MLS clearly shows that the first two groupings would accom-modate the majority of those who crossed the Atlantic. Of course, this is not adefinitive typology for explaining the presence of English players in MLS.However, links can be identified with the categories set out in the typologies ofsport labor migration identified earlier in this work that helped shape the field ofresearch in this area. For example, the first group of migrants could be describedas settlers, in the sense that these migrants attend North American colleges butthen settle in MLS following their graduation from the college game. Moreover,the second group could be described as ambitionist in their migrations. For thesemigrant workers, the ambition to secure a professional playing opportunityanywhere, irrespective of level, is of utmost importance. For players who mayhave been released by clubs in their home nations domestic leagues’, MLS mayrepresent one of a very limited number of professional playing opportunitiesavailable. Finally, for the third group, the perhaps mercenary desires to prolonga professional engagement with the sport may be the most significant factorinfluencing their migration decisions. Yet, it is also important to acknowledgethat typologies represent somewhat ideal type categories and that for eachindividual there is usually a combination of factors that influence their move-ment to work in a different nation.

Conclusion

The signing of David Beckham represented a bold move by MLS to developtheir product and may one day be read as the most significant moment in thehistory of professional soccer in the U.S. Quite whether this will be significantfor good or bad reasons remains to be seen as Beckham’s first few months in theleague were plagued by injury problems, and he missed many games. Researchinvestigating the relationship between player performance and salary in MLShighlighted that Beckham was paid more than 400 times the salary of someteammates in his first season for a return of five games and two goals (Lee andHarris 2010). His second season in LA colors started better, and he continued tobe selected for the England national squad despite the fact that many saw hismoving to MLS as definitively signaling the end of his international career. Thispresents those involved with the governance of MLS with a new, and unantici-pated, problem as international call-ups often meant that Beckham was unavail-able for matches in the domestic competition. As the MLS season runs at adifferent time to many other leagues across the world this could present a majorproblem if the aim is to attract other current international players from Englandand other parts of Europe in addition to those coming to the end of their careerswho had retired from international duty.

In the early part of 2009, Beckham agreed a loan deal with AC Milan in Italyas he wanted to stay “match-fit” and try and hold on to his place in the Englandsquad (as MLS did not resume its season until March). The opportunity to onceagain play in one of the top leagues in the world was something Beckham


desperately wanted to do (see Wahl 2009). Moreover, this stated desire and thecomments of Beckham and his national team’s manager that he needed to playin a “proper” league and that MLS was not of a level commensurate with that ofan international football player. For those looking from the outside, then thissuggested that MLS was not really a part of the football world and remained asoccer league far removed. As with many other parts of his career and celebrityprofiling, Beckham’s case is unique, and his is a markedly different case fromother English players who have moved to MLS. As we have shown in thisoverview, it is highly unlikely that any other current England international willplay in MLS in the foreseeable future. Although Beckham could command asalary thirty-five times that of the average annual salary for an MLS midfieldplayer (Lee and Harris 2010), the average annual salary for an MLS player wouldequate to less than one week’s wages for a top player in the European leagues.

We are conscious that this initial overview represents nothing more than apoint of departure for research relating to labor migration and MLS. It hasattempted to tease out, and problematize, some of the key issues relating to labormigration to offer a more measured and realistic analysis of the positioning of thegame in a particular locale. In focusing on the case of English players in MLS, ithas pointed toward some of the emerging patterns of migration in this area.Future research might wish to develop this further and focus on the livedexperiences of English soccer players in the U.S. Bale’s (1991) work provides auseful point of departure of this “brawn drain,” and it will be interesting to assesswhat percentage of English players in MLS over the next decade are those thatinitially arrive in the country to play in the collegiate game. Research may alsoexplore the migration of coaches, as this is an area that has received scant attentionin labor migration research to date. While professional soccer in the U.S. hasdeveloped markedly over the last 14 years, it will be interesting to see what thefuture brings and what Beckham’s ultimate legacy will be. Beckham once againrecently reaffirmed his desire to remain in the U.S. after his athletic career is over,and one of his three sons may well play the game there. His move to MLS may wellrepresent a significant moment and the “mercenary” portrayed in many medianarratives surrounding his move to L.A. will actually be a “settler” and contributemuch further to the development of professional soccer in the U.S.

Richard Elliott is Senior Lecturer in Sociology of Sport and Director of theLawrie McMenemy Centre for Football Research at Southampton Solent Uni-versity, Southampton, UK. His research focuses on migration in elite level sport,with a particular emphasis on football.

John Harris is Senior Lecturer in Sport & Event Management at GlasgowCaledonian University. Previously he was Associate Professor in the School ofFoundations, Leadership & Administration at Kent State University, U.S. He isauthor of Rugby Union and Globalization (Palgrave Macmillan) and variousarticles on aspects of football. Address correspondence to Richard Elliott, PhD,Southampton Solent University, East Park Terrace, Southampton, Hampshire,


United Kingdom, SO14 0YN. Telephone: +44-23-8031 9000. E-mail:[email protected]; and John Harris, PhD, Senior Lecturer, Depart-ment of Management, Glasgow Caledonian University, Cowcaddens Road,Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom. Telephone: +44-141-331-8286; Email:[email protected].

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Documents

CROSSING THE ATLANTIC FROM FOOTBALL TO SOCCER: PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS ON THE MIGRATIONS OF ENGLISH PLAYERS AND THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER