Football Confidential

I just cracked a copy of Football Confidential (2000), an investigative documentary book from the BBC... "a journey through the underbelly of our (the UK's) national game covering the period when it transmuted from a mere spectator sport into an entertainment industry" (p6).

This is gonna be good. Here's a bit from chapter 10:
Soccer Slaves
The young players dumped on the streets by ruthless agents

Living in an abandoned bus, cold and hungry, wasn't exactly Timi had in mind when he was promised a glittering career in European football.

An engaging and articulate young man, he showed talent from the time he first kicked a ball as a seven-year-old on the streets of Lagos, the Nigerian capital. 'When I was young I always ed I'd play in Europe, especially in Germany or England," he says. "My father loved football. He encouraged me to play and, when I had the opportunity to go to Europe to further my career, he gave me the finance to go there.'

Timi (his full name is Adewusi Olurotimi) was 17 when a footballing friend put him in touch with an agent. 'The agent made me a lot of promises before I left Nigeria; and because I was a teenager I had to sign lots of papers for my parents saying that he was going to take care of me and find me a club. He said that if I came to Europe I would live better than in Nigeria, play football, be happy, gain a lot of money and play in a big club. I believed him.'

What happened next was just one example of a football scandal that is now being investigated at the highest levels of the United Nations. It is a story that stretches from the slums of Rio to the shanty towns of Soweto; a seedy, frightening saga of human trafficking and exploitation that borders on slavery. How could it happen at the dawn of the twenty-first century is testimony to the greed and opportunism of much of the modern game.

The Power of the Game

I just came across a reference to a recent Michael Apted documentary, The Power of the Game, where he follows six stories that track the futbol phenomenon, leading up to the 2006 World Cup. One chapter deals with the "slave trade" of young African players, another addresses the entrenched racism around football in Europe, another is about the repression facing Iranian women in football... Gotta put this on my imminent film list.

Apted's done a bunch of Hollywood feature films as well, but he's probably best known for his 7 Up documentary series, an episodic film that explored the contours of social class and began in 1963 while Apted was working as a researcher for Granada Television. He helped recruit a group of 14 seven-year-old British school children to discuss their lives and dreams. Every 7 years, Apted follows up with the original group, or those that agree to continue on. The most recent production, "49 Up," was released in 2005.

Kenyans Debate JMJ Football Academy

This short story from kenyafootball.com is about about Jean Pierre, a Belgian who was (still is?) running a football academy at the Kenya Science Teachers College grounds, named JMJ Academy. The comments about the story are probably more interesting to me...some contentious words.

Bikey of Reading FC talks about slave trade

One of the few players in European pro leagues that I've even heard talking publicly about the football slave trade, Andrey Bikey of Reading FC, originally Cameroon, is quoted in the Modern Ghana News, March 5, 2008:

“I never went to a football academy; I started playing at school and near my home. I played for a third-division team and it was only when I was selected for the Cameroon under-17 team that I started to take football seriously. During a tournament in Italy the Espanyol manager invited me to a trial; now I've played in Spain, Portugal, Moscow and England.

“Many European teams go to Africa to watch boys with a view to bringing them to their clubs. It used to be only a few players, but now, every year in Cameroon, many children are brought to Europe for trials. A lot of young players in Paris have nothing; they have come from Africa and if their trial doesn't go well they are left on the streets. Some agent will pick up the kid and take them to Europe, and if it doesn't work out they abandon them.

Young players in Africa do need more help and more attention.”

Not the most critical sentiment against the practice, but the only I've located from a star player.

Is the football slave trade "sticky"?

In continuing to think about whether the football slave trade controversy has a real public consciousness among football fans, I decided to start digging around on my current-favorite social networking site: Facebook! This morning, I joined a handful of facebook groups having to do with soccer in some way (e.g. some FIFA groups, team fansites for ManU, Arsenal, and Barca, and a smattering of others). Here's more or less what I've posted on the discussion boards:

Hi everyone, I have been doing research into what's been called the 'football slave trade' and I'm hoping people can help inform me. (see these links for some news stories on the issue... http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/02/09/1202234232502.html... http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tv_and_radio/world_football/1695869.stm).

So here's my questions: do many football fans know about this controversy? How aware are you of it? Where did you hear or read about it? If you are aware of it, do you think it matters? Do you care? Do you feel anything could or should be done about it?

If you are willing to respond honestly--in any way you'd like--I'd be grateful.

Not sure if I'll get responses or what sort, but this might just help me understand whether or not this controversy is "sticky"?

Patricia Hill Collins on social theory

One of my readings the last several days is Collins' (1998) Fighting Words. Each page has been filled with points of connection for me, particularly questions around the relationship between knowledge and power. Throughout the book, Collins places a lens over her positionality [and that of African-American women and subordinated groups more generally] within a "complex of organized practices, including government, law, business and financial mangement, professional organizations, and educational institutions, as well as the discourses in texts that interpret the multiple sites of power" (Smith, 1987, 3, cited in Collins).

I'm intrigued by the ways that she shows how "theory cuts both ways," working "to reproduce existing power relations or to foster social and economic justice," and how it can even serve both ends. In Collins view, "doing social theory involves analyzing the changing aspects of social organization of social organization that affect people's everyday lives. Social theory is a body of knowledge and a set of institutional practices that actively grapple with the central questions facing a group of people in a specific political, social, and historical context. Instead of circulating exclusively as a body of decontextualized ideas among privileged intellectuals, social theory emerges from, is legitimated by, and reflects the concerns of actual groups of people in particular institutional settings. This definition creates a space for all types of groups to participate in theorizing about social issues. Moreover, it suggests that differences in perspective about social issues will reflect differences in the power of those who theorize" (xii).

To read some more, download Fighting Word's intro chapter.

problems with blogger

fyi, i have been having difficulties posting comments on the blog. A couple people have left comments and the site is not letting me respond to those for some reason.

A few thoughts in response to Kara, you remind me to keep prevailing Discourses in mind as I go through these enquiries. I am struck by how ideologies of meritocracy, extreme individualism, and a-historical thinking intersect and produce interesting effects... how, as you note, star players know just what they should say when the camera is rolling -- anyone can do what I do -- when 'we' know this not to be true... how society often attributes athletes' success to sheer talent, hard work ethic, determination, etc, but fails to pinpoint the systems of support, privilege, and power that also makes people what they are.

What makes a controversy stick?

Leigh got me thinking about this question yesterday...

So from the news that I've collected around the football slave trade (some of which I've posted to the blog), this story had some legs back in the early 2000's. Since then, the problem has evolved, becoming more entrenched and legitimatized. News stories continue to surface now and again, and more academics have investigated (but who reads academics anyway?), but is the 'slave trade' a controversy with broad public consciousness among football fans? Are people aware? Do they care? Do people simply feel impotent to do anything?

What does make a controversy stick -- or slip quietly into the background? What makes a social issue publicly salient, and gives it weight in the media-sphere?

Is Mikel's story a slave trade saga?

Interesting to me how this Irish Independent article framed Mikel John Obi within the contentious contract negotiations that took place between himself, Manchester United, & Chelsea FC back in 2005. Mikel, a major prospect from Nigeria, who supposedly made a deal to play with with Man U, later reneged and signed with Chelsea (Mikel's agent had close ties to Chelsea FC... wink wink, nudge nudge).

Sue Mott writes: "This is like the slave trade in reverse. Still imperialists invading Africa, and trafficking in human life, only the rewards are different. Slaves were ridiculously poor, footballers are ridiculously rich. But there is one similarity: loss of freedom."

Mott's distinction only holds up if you look at footballers who 'make it' at the top peofessional level. "Ridiculously rich" does not represent all footballers, not even a simple majority. Most do not make it, and do not have the social capital to negotiate ridiculously profitable contracts. But let's not get bogged down with attention to the little guy. We're talking about the stars here.

Inquiry into 'slave trade' in African footballers

Nov 7, 2000 ©independent.co.uk

"New evidence of the football world's exploitation of African players has emerged in Belgium - of young men lured with promises of lucrative contracts then dumped or mistreated. New evidence of the football world's exploitation of African players has emerged in Belgium - of young men lured with promises of..."

By Stephen Castle in Brussels, Alex Duval Smith in Johannesburg and Lloyd Rundle

exploring the trade

In response to critics of the so-called football slave trade -- and to European football clubs' history of accessing (and exploiting) cheap African talent -- one could say, Look, Europe is the world’s epicenter of pro football. It's where the most competitive play occurs, where the most profitable leagues flourish, where players receive the most lucrative contracts. It should come as no surprise to anyone that young athletes around the world dream of growing up and playing for Barça, Arsenal, Manchester United, Marseille... or that many of them would go to extreme means for the opportunity to make it. This point I concede freely. But what is deeply troubling is the route by which most African boys must travel in hopes of making it in the European leagues.

Pro teams go scouring for potential talent that can be signed on the super-cheap. Pro agents prowl the streets of Accra and Abijan, hoping to “poach” the next star player. Community football coaches and managers, and even parents, hoping to get rich off children. As Dan McDougall (2008) has put it:

European, Arab and increasingly West African middlemen are effectively buying the best young players from their families in tightly binding contracts, often backed up by threats of violence against families with the hope of making a small fortune selling the boys onto the West or extorting their families for the cost of passage.

As young as 10 years old, these young boys are sold into lop-sided contractual obligations, shipped off to Europe, and set on course in football training programs. Tens of thousands of players have passed through this gauntlet. For the majority of these young men, their chances do not materialize into professional contracts and are shown the door, frequently left on the streets of European cities, as undocumented, “illegal” immigrants. In the worst-case scenarios, these kids have entered into child prostitution to survive (Donnelly & Petherick, 2004). In 2001, FIFA responded with new regulations, preventing clubs from signing players under 18 years, and creating policies whereby clubs outside of Europe that manage the football training and formation of players under 18 receive compensation from any European club that signs one of its player (FIFA, cited in Darby, 2007). Yet at the same time that regulations were being constructed, this transnational, peculiar institution was already in motion, constructing a new system to circumvent the regulations, and thus, continue the flow of cheap labor from Africa to Europe. The establishment of African football academies has boomed since that time, legal and illegal "schools" that even can capitalize on FIFA regulations.

So, in what ways do 'football academies' provide the legal cover for the maintenance of this modern-day slave trade? How does race, ethnicity, and class operate within this complex? Who benefits? Who suffers? What social theories (do/can) emerge from this complex "from or on behalf of historically oppressed groups (to) invest ways to escape from, survive in, and/or oppose prevailing social and economic injuststice?" (Hills Collins, 1998, xiii) This last question in particular will be critical to my inquiries...
more as it comes.

Sport Industrial Complex

The notion of the sport-industrial complex was born out of a warning issued in President Eisenhower’s Farewell Address. In this well-known speech, Eisenhower introduced the idea of the military-industrial complex to the public... a term many people recognize but few have deeply considered. He cautioning against "the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex," which had been established during World War II and swelled throughout the Cold War, with the potential to stretch indefinitely. "This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience," Eisenhower explained. "The total influence—economic, political, even spiritual—is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government."

Where are we now, almost 50 years since Eisenhower's warning? How has it changed and grown over time? What aspects have been hidden from public oversight by Congress or active citizens? How does it impact us and how are we implicated (complicit) in its structure?

And what, if anything, does this really have to do with what I want to study?

Tainted Dreams

Sydney Morning Herald, February 10, 2008

They dream of glory, but too often Africa's football hopefuls end up on the streets of Europe. Dan McDougall's investigative report.

Belgium's Football Slave Trade

BBC Sport Online: Friday, 7 December, 2001

Richard Fleming discusses the illegal exploitation of black footballers forced to play for nothing in Belgium.

New Slave Trade

3/19/2008, New Criminologist
Joss Haynes has a concise article on the trafficking of youth between Africa and Europe. Referring to what's been dubbed 'the football slave trade,' FIFA president has railed against European football clubs for committing “social and economical rape,” and has called the scores of illegal agents “false prophets” who prey on and exploit families and children that get lured in by (usually) empty promises and the dreams of success.

Why do we need theory?

I'm sure I'll misquote the line, but Leigh has a good story about a student in one of her research methods courses. One day, feeling a bit exasperated in grappling with the concept of theory in ed research, he exclaimed, I really need to get one of these theoretical frameworks!

I chuckle when I hear that--partly because I've felt that sentiment before, and partly because now it seems silly to me to think about theory as something you gotta go out and get. I see it more as an art in asking questions, a practice of genuine inquiry, as a way to construct explanations for the world around us, as an intentional process to make sense of the observations we witness...

Theory can be thought of, diversely, as a guide to navigate our social surroundings and historical realities, as a critical friend, as a process of lifelong learning, as a window into new possibilities...

On second thought, maybe we do all need to go out and get more theory in our lives.

a broad stroked "problem"

As early human records show, civilizations have played games, acting upon people’s desires to compete—and to be victorious. Societies have been captivated by athletes, their skillful performances, and the contentious battles they wage within the sporting arena. For example, the Mayan people played Pok-a-tok, a game on a stone court with sloped walls and stone rings hung high that served as goalposts. Pok-a-tok was filled with ritual, religious, and mythological significance; its winners treated as heroes, its losers facing harsh penalties, even human sacrifice, a practice that was thought necessary for the peoples' continued health and prosperity. The Greeks had their games that also carried great cultural importance, as did the Romans, and scores of civilizations throughout history. In fact, we could trace any society’s histories of sport, and understand something about its social order, and about that society’s connections between the physical body, power, knowledge, and social management.

Yet within the 20th Century, we witness the rise of a new cultural phenomenon: the sport-industrial complex (SIC), a complex, adaptive system that cultural critic Dave Zirin calls " a sprawling, overly influential industry that has impacted all of our lives," whether we like it or not. The SIC (like the military-industrial complex and the prison-industrial complex) exists not as a secret conspiracy, but rather, as a network of bureaucratic, political, and economic interests that encourages spending on professional sports to advance particular agendas . Consisting of private businesses and corporations that regard professional sports as a vast and profitable market, politicians who saber for public investment in pro franchises, and local communities that count on sports to sustain the local economy, to name a few, this vast global network implicates all of us in some ways.

I realize I am painting this "problem", or socio-dynamic, in broad strokes. I do promise to hone in and to illustrate an argument by localizing the problem/s, but for now, please allow me to continue casting a wide net... So connected to my research with Hargreaves in the sectors of education, business, and sport, I have begun playing with questions related to the interactions and effects of professional sports organizations across communities. I am curious about the diverse ways that these sport organizations, which operate as for-profit businesses and corporations, transact with the communities that they are linked. Within this, I have a particular interest in how youth are impacted and implicated.

First, a bit on what I mean by ‘communities.’ This can refer to the locale that hosts the pro team. For instance, the city of Paris hosts several pro football (soccer) clubs, one being Paris Saint-Germain F.C. (PSG), whose training grounds are just outside Paris and stadium, in the uber-wealthy 16th arrondissement of the city. PSG, its worth estimated around 41 million euros (BBC News, 2006), receives substantial support from Paris’ municipal government in the form of subsidies, financial incentives, and public services offered. Public support for these subsidies stems, though not exclusively, from expectations that the host community will reap certain economic and social benefits.

At the same time, current PSG players hail from communities in France, Brazil, Benin, Mali, Serbia, the Republic of Congo, Armenia, and Cameroon. PSG, as well as Paris and French society more generally, are connected to each of these communities in similar and dissimilar ways. Historically, France established and operated colonies in four of these respective nations. In our post-colonial (neocolonial?) world, in what ways can we hear any echoes of the past? Somewhat recently, investigative journalists began reporting on what has been called the ‘football slave trade’ (e.g. BBC News, 2000), whereby pro football agents travel abroad in the hope of “poaching” young talent in African and other developing nations. The teams are looking for the next star players that can be signed on the cheap. The young boys, some of them reported to be 15 years old, dream of the opportunity to play in the European leagues, and frequently enter into contractual obligations that are not in their interests. Families have been given significant cash loans in exchange for the rights to represent their son, loans that then can sink the family into deep debt and leave the athlete bound to the agent’s company. And if the player cannot hack it in the pro’s, they are shown the door, now displaced from their home community and usually without working papers. It can be said that social and racial formations from the past can be seen in present-day circumstances (Collins, 2005).

I am open to a number of research angles at this point, and am just getting my feet into the literature. I feel like I need, to some degree, to wait and see where it leads me. My rough intent would be to conduct a sociological case study on 1 pro sport organization (or possibly 2?), to examine its interactions with and impacts across communities--and with youth, in particular. I see this project, like my weird little brain, as a theoretical hybrid, drawing on historical perspectives, structural-economic research, critical pedagogy, postcolonial studies, political science, philosophy, pop culture... To start--embedded within this inquiry are matters of power--in Foucault's (1980) words: "What are the various contrivances of power, whose operations extend to such differing levels and sectors of society and are possessed of such manifold ramifications? What are their mechanisms, their effects and their relations?" (p.88).

Citations:

• BBC News (2000, Feb. 14). Africa’s football ‘slave trade.’ Accessed online at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/639390.stm
• BBC News (2006, April 11). Paris Saint-Germain changes hands. Accessed online at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4898746.stm
• Collins, P.H. (2005). Black Sexual Politics. Taylor and Francis.
• Foucault (1980). Power/Knowledge.
• Zirin, D. (2007). Welcome to the terrordome: The pain, politics, and promise of sports. Chicago: Haymarket Books.

Sport Industrial Complex

Yesterday I was reading across a few texts on the business of sport, delving into issues like municipal subsidies to- and tax sheltering for- pro franchises. In reflecting on the flow of money to and from the ownership and players--i.e. where it goes and whom it impacts--I struck on the notion of the Sport Industrial Complex (SIC). I know some of the gritty details of the Military Industrial Complex and have written on the Prison Industrial Complex, but I'd never even considered applying this notion to sports. I need to look at this further, but I think the idea of the SIC may prove a useful concept to contextualize my study.

A quick google search and Dave Zirin popped up as somebody whose written on the subject. Zirin's book Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, Politics and Promise of Sports explores, in his words, "how corporate interests have taken something beautiful -- sports -- and turned it into the athletic industrial complex -- a sprawling, overly influential industry that has impacted all of our lives," whether we like it or not. The book title refers to the New Orleans' Superdome, a "gruesome collision of sports and politics." Zirin was "sitting there with the rest of the country in 2005... seeing 20 to 30,000 of New Orleans’ poorest residents herded into the Louisiana Superdome, in conditions that I thought Jesse Jackson quite correctly likened to the hull of a slave ship, and seeing a New Orleans that did not have enough money for emergency shelter, that did not have enough money to even keep the levees upright, but did have enough money over the course of three decades to keep running the largest domed structure in the Western Hemisphere was something beyond compare. And when you consider that the folks herded into the Superdome never could have afforded a ticket, it just occurred to me that sports really is not sports anymore. It’s become an athletic industrial complex, that...impacts all of our lives" (Citation: Watch Dave talking about this book or read the interview transcript on Democracy Now).

As the title suggests it's not all about social pain and misery, but also about the promise (and potential) of sports. Zirin's writings have put a spotlight on activist athletes and coaches who have used the sports arena as a platform to struggle for social justice.

Casting a wide net

Choosing to start broadly, I figured I need to ask, What does the literature {e.g. theoretical research, empirical research, policy papers, evaluation studies, news & popular press, company websites, ...} in the fields of sport, business, education, and community development say about the role of professional sports organizations within community relations/community engagement/public relations?

As a clarifying point, at this moment I'm interested in more direct forms of engagement, not so much in indirect forms, like social-issues ad campaigns or PSA's.

So last week, I began by combing through the stacks of Boston College and Boston University libraries, skimming books related to sports in society. Over several days, I lugged bags of books home and to the office, books on the economic dynamics of pro sports, like Pay Dirt, on the sociology of sports, on cultural representations in pro sports (for example, why we look upon sport stars as deities, where this tradition stems from), and a few textbooks on sports management. Plus, I've got a list of 10 books or so in O'Neill stacks just waiting for me to release them from their shelves and stack on mine.

Next, I've begun running searches in the social sciences CrossSearch, a search engine that cuts across multiple databases: Anthropology Plus, Communication Abstracts, ERIC, Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts, PsycARTICLES, PsycINFO 1840-current, Social Sciences Citation Index, Social Services Abstracts, and Sociological Abstracts. So far, I have found very little that directly addresses my question, but a lot of material to contextualize things.

I know the task of familiarizing myself with a wide body of literature will be long (and I've only started), and the next step of tightening my gaze seems like so foreign at this point, but my early sense is that this is a ripe area for inquiry. Many researchers and writers have delved into the complicated relationships of professional sports in society, yet few authors appear to have directly approached the pedagogical relationships therein. More to come...

My questions, as they stand

First, a bit of background: this year, I've gotten involved in a relatively large-scale international study exploring leadership and change within high-performing organizations (following a slump or near-failure of the organization) across 4 sectors--education, business, sports, and health. Entitled, Performing Beyond Expectations (PBE), this is will mostly be a "good news" story, trying to understand what kinds of leadership decisions and actions were taken within the organization and how they contributed to the org.'s turnaround and sustained performance.

Connected to this, I've begun muddling around questions about the role(s) of professional sports organizations within community-based education, with a particular eye towards youth-related issues (I may want to first delimit this more broadly, as community engagement..??). Through my involvement in PBE, I have access to pro sports teams in the U.K. and soon, hopefully, in the US. My current plan is to examine various pro clubs' patterns of engagement with their local communities, as well as the multiple Discourses (ideologies) that are recruited to do the sociocultural lifting, so to speak. How do these Discourses operate, and to what ends? In what ways do they 'rub up against one another'? Embedded within are matters of power--in Foucault's words: "What are the various contrivances of power, whose operations extend to such differing levels and sectors of society and are possessed of such manifold ramifications? What are their mechanisms, their effects and their relations?" (Power/Knowledge, 1980, p.88)

These are questions I need to ask in beginning to unravel (and inevitably re-entangle) the complex interplay between professional sports, civil society, the government, and education.

What's this blog for?

I decided to begin to document the questions, readings, problems, responses, curiosities, inklings, implications, and whatever else comes up along the way to writing my dissertation.

I choose to blog so the record is public. I certainly won't include everything that's in my notebooks and my little brain, but my putting it out in the blogosphere, others can read it...others who might be moved by similar questions or simply wish to subject themselves to the inane workings of me in the process of dissertating about the intersection of sport, business, government, and education.

I write this blog for me, but if you find yourself engaged, then please do: send me a note, write a question, challenge something I say, offer a criticism, a suggestion, a joke... I am listening:
alexgurn@gmail.com