Abstract
The intention of this paper is to examine the range of interdependent processes that influence the decisions of Irish footballers to migrate from teams based in the League of Ireland to English Premier League and Football League clubs. Using data derived from a series of qualitative interviews conducted with a group of Irish players that had relocated to English clubs at different points over a 20-year period, the analysis reveals that the players’ decisions to migrate are predicated upon the interdependency of a number of processes that push the migrants from Ireland and pull them to England. The paper shows how these processes are reflected in a series of migrations where the players are not simply passive social agents but, rather, dynamic interlocutors whose decisions must be framed within the local contexts between which their movements are situated.
Source: International Review for the Sociology of Sport, published online before print 11 February 2014.
The final, definitive version of this paper has been published in International Review for the Sociology of Sport, first published online 11 February 2014 by SAGE Publications Ltd, All rights reserved. © [Richard Elliott].
