THE IMPACT OF FOREIGN PLAYERS ON INTERNATIONAL FOOTBALL PERFORMANCE

The impact of foreign players on international football performance



Table of Contents

Chapter I4

1. Introduction4

2. Background6

3. The Bosman ruling and European football11

Chapter II14

4. Methodology and analysis15

5. Foreign players in European league football16

6. Foreign players in the BPL20

Chapter III21

7. Football migration, nationality issues and management strategy22

7.1 Labour migration in the Bundesliga22

8. Patriotism and nationality issues in African football27

9. Deconstructing management strategy30

10. Management strategy and the BPL34

11. Discussion39

Chapter IV43

12. Conclusions43

13. Management implications48

References50

Appendices A (Figures)56

Appendix B (Tables)57

Abstract

Rationale

The purpose of this paper is to show how one of the biggest phenomena of the twenty-first century is the internationalisation of professional sports and how premier league football epitomises this. With the influx of foreign players, managers and now owners, European League Football has become big business. This paper aims to provide a theoretical analysis of the management implications of foreign players in the English Premiership League football - renamed the Barclays Premier League to suit the needs of its major sponsors.

Methodology

The approach adopted is purely qualitative in nature, evaluating the top Barclays Premier League teams and the impact of globalisation on their reconfigurations since the early 1990s to date. The study draws mainly from a review of the extant literature on sports and management, as well as a critical analysis of media reports.

Judgments

Globalisation has emerged as a new force that has changed the way corporations are managed. Financial services, retail and information technology firms have all responded to this new wave - and so also has sports. Unfortunately while sports have the potential to teach lessons on management strategy, management researchers seem to have relegated sports to the sociology and psychology disciplines.

Implications

The Barclays Premier league football provides a unique environment for management decisions and processes to occur in a range of markets and at varied levels. However, the globalisation of professional sports has received relatively very little attention in the academic literature - especially in the field of business and management.

Originality/value

This paper contributes to the scant literature on the management implications of football by highlighting how globalisation has affected and reconfigured professional sports using the influx of foreign players into the English football league as a point of departure.

Chapter I

1. Introduction

In the late Seventies and early Eighties, when I was becoming aware of football (soccer), there were very few foreign players in what was then called the English First Division and which would subsequently be re-marketed as the Premier League.

Foreign' was defined as anyone not from any of the nations in the British Isles and the few foreigners who were in the league typically were of a very high quality. We had a pair of World Cup winners at Spurs (Argentina's Ossie Ardiles and Ricardo Villa) and a pair of elegant Dutch midfielders at Ipswich (Arnold Muhren and Frans Thijssen), plus an unorthradox but capable Zimbabwean goalkeeper at Liverpool (Bruce Grobbelaar).

During that period, I think most of us football fans, actually would have liked to have seen more foreign players as they added a certain exotic and cultured presence ...