Labour migration to Chinese Super League: an examination of UK newspapers from Anelka in 2011 to Tevez in 2017

Abstract

There have been many studies about soccer labour migration, and these studies have employed different theoretical frameworks to understand players’ migration such as a neocolonial exploitation-based structural Marxism, world system theory, or the notion of globalization. Given there are increasing numbers of international soccer players migrating to the Chinese Super League (CSL) – a trend which appears to be one of the vital forces that are reshaping current soccer labour migration – this study is designed to rethink and revisit soccer labour migration. Since not much is known about the nascent nature of migration to the CSL, an overriding goal of this study is to understand how mainstream media portray global soccer labour migration to the CSL. To do this, this study used a content analysis of three newspapers (The Sun, Daily Mail, and Daily Mirror) from 2011 to January of 2017 in the UK. The results of this study revealed a majority of these newspapers highlight a mercenary dimension of labour migration, while the mercenary dimension often was combined with an ambitionist dimension. The results of this study also showed that the newspaper articles examined lack a comprehensive interplay of culture, globalization, and migration. Future research directions are suggested based on the results of the study.

Keywords:

• Labour migration
• soccer
• Chinese Super League
• newspapers

Notes

1. While soccer labour could, potentially, include players, coaches, referees, and journalists, this study focuses on players only.

2. A majority of European soccer leagues, except a few from the northern part of Europe (e.g. Russian Premier League, Allsvenskan of Sweden, Danish Superliga of Denmark, etc.), run from autumn to spring. The CSL, in contrast, starts in spring and finishes in autumn. Given this study focused on migration to the CSL, this study used a spring-autumn cycle. In other words, each year indicates each season.

3. Though Tevez was signed from a non-European club (Argentine club Boca Juniors), he was included in this study because he only played one season in Boca Juniors after spending his prime in European leagues (West Ham United, Manchester United, Manchester City, and Juventus).