Abstract
Migration is a crucial topic for athletic career development. Despite the challenges and issues that sport migrants face, little is known about Brazilian context. On Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological approach, this study aims to analyze the Brazilian men elite futsal players’ job conditions and their influence on athletes’ dispositions for labor sport migration. On quali–quantitative approach, interviews with 28 Brazilian men elite futsal players were thematically analyzed and quantitative data on clubs’ rosters from the Brazilian National Futsal League were collected. We concluded the following aspects: (a) players’ migrant disposition is a consequence of unfavorable labor conditions; (b) remaining in the same city for long period is a privilege; (c) players and relatives are submitted to constant habitus transformation because of repeated mobility and adaptations to different networks in each new city/club.
Introduction
In globalized world, where sports have become a transnational social phenomenon involving complex and opened relations of work, consumption, information, culture, and flux of people (Frick, 2009; Lago-Peñas et al., 2019; Leeds & Leeds, 2009; Milanovic, 2005; Poli, 2010), migration is a crucial topic in athletes’ career development (Bourke, 2003; Elliott, 2013; Maguire, 2004; Poli & Ravenel, 2018; Roderick, 2013), both on temporary mobility and permanent terms (Agergaard & Ryba, 2014).
Sport labor migration is a contested, problematic, and uncertain process that affects the career and life conditions of migrant athletes in several sports (Carter, 2007; Frick, 2009; Lago-Peñas et al., 2019; Maguire, 2013; Roderick, 2012). Research into this area has grown significantly in the last three decades (Elliott & Gusterud, 2018; Lago-Peñas et al., 2019), especially those related to transnational migration on football and its most prominent European professional men leagues (Binder & Findlay, 2012; Elliott, 2013, 2016; Frick, 2009; Poli et al., 2018). On the contrary, there is lack of studies and information specially on two dimensions: (a) intranational migration studies, which deserves attention from academic researchers because of its impact on social changes and cultural issues faced by migrants within the same country (Erel, 2010; McKinlay & McVittie, 2007; Roderick, 2013) and (b) research on migration related to other sports beyond football (Elliott & Maguire, 2008; Gavira et al., 2013), such as futsal (Moore et al., 2014; Tedesco, 2014) and its specific social scenarios, for example, in Brazil (Caregnato et al., 2015). Furthermore, little is still known about Brazilian sport labor context (Damo, 2014; de Souza & Martins, 2018; Marques & Marchi Júnior, 2019) and its influence on intranational and transnational sport migration scenarios (Rubio, 2017).
Futsal is a sport regulated by Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) since 1989. It has been practiced in five continents (Berdejo-del-fresno, 2014), on a growing professionalization process of athletes’ careers (Marques & Marchi Júnior, 2019; Tedesco, 2014). In Brazil, futsal is a very popular sport, with approximately 20 million nonregistered practitioners and around 300,000 registered athletes (Bello, 2014). There are also several national senior level futsal tournaments in this country, such as Taça Brasil (Brazil Trophy), Supercopa de Futsal (Futsal Supercup), Copa do Brasil (Brazil Cup), besides regional, state, and micro-regional leagues, among others.
In addition, Brazil occupies a detachable competitive position in futsal, being the main all time men and women world champion (Mascarin et al., 2019). Together with Spain, Italy, and Russia, Brazil has one of the most important men’s national leagues worldwide, the Liga Nacional de Futsal (LNF; National Futsal League), which included 19 clubs and around 360 players in the 2019 edition (LNF, 2019).
Despite this context of futsal’s social relevance in Brazil, few studies on Brazilian men futsal players’ labor migration are available in the literature. This small group of articles present issues and challenges faced by Brazilian men players that have moved to Spain, Portugal, and Italy, such as missing family and friends, higher pressure for success in comparison to local athletes, and the barriers related to social transformation of habits, foods, and language abroad (Dimeo & Ribeiro, 2009; Tedesco, 2014). Complementarily, other studies suggest similar issues related to Brazilian men football players’ migration both on intranational and transnational levels (Rial, 2008; Ribeiro & Dimeo, 2009; Tonini, 2013; Tonini & Giglio, 2019).
As an effort to better understand and to propose elements for solutions on these practical social issues related to mobility of Brazilian men futsal players (Dimeo & Ribeiro, 2009; Tedesco, 2014), the aim of this study was to analyze and describe the Brazilian men elite futsal players’ job conditions and their influence on athletes’ dispositions for labor sport migration.
Considering a worldwide context, Brazil, together with other countries in South America, Asia, and Africa, act mostly as sending places than receivers for migrant athletes, being mainly the origin and not the destiny (Gavira et al., 2013; Poli, 2010; Poli et al., 2017; Poli & Ravenel, 2018). On the contrary, the majority of sport migration studies in the literature focused on data and contexts from receiving places and socioeconomically developed countries, especially those sited in Northern hemisphere (Gavira et al., 2013). It also includes studies about Brazilian transnational migrants in different areas of society apart from sport (Green, 2011; Maher & Cawley, 2015; Schrooten et al., 2016).
To analyze sport migration in a particular and specific context from the Southern hemisphere is innovative and relevant (Darby et al., 2007), especially in front of the prominence of South American countries in some team sports, as football (Leeds & Leeds, 2009) and futsal (Mascarin et al., 2019). Results from this study can be especially important because it offers a not much explored landscape, based on the data from a socioeconomically developing country (Rong, 2010) with a high level of social inequality, such as Brazil (Graeff et al., 2019; Knijnik, 2013), being part of the globalized world within its transnational and transcontinental market of sport (Lago-Peñas et al., 2019; Poli et al., 2017).
Considering that the sociological approach is very suitable to understand the recruitment, moving, and actions of migrants (Elliott & Maguire, 2008; Guarnizo et al., 2019; O’Reilly, 2013), to describe the Brazilian futsal labor migration social context, as well as to understand players’ intranational and transnational migration experiences, we based our study on sociological categories from Pierre Bourdieu’s Reflexive Sociology and his Theory of Fields (Bourdieu, 1977, 1984, 1993, 1998; Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992), besides his contributions on reflections about migration (Bourdieu, 2004; Bourdieu & Wacquant, 2000).
The theory of practice from Bourdieu (1977) offers the possibility “to understand the practice of daily life as the outcome of the constant interaction of structure and agency, where structures are both external to and internalized, enacted and performed by agents” (O’Reilly, 2013, p. 1). Because of this and other contributions, the work of Pierre Bourdieu is considered a fruitful theoretical framework for social approaches on sport (Coakley, 2006; Cushion & Jones, 2014; Cushion & Kitchen, 2011; Leeder & Cushion, 2019; Marques & Marchi Júnior, 2019; Moret & Ohl, 2019; Schubring & Thiel, 2014), as well as on migration studies (Alexander, 2016; Erel, 2010; Oliver & O’Reilly, 2010; O’Reilly, 2013).
Thus, first we introduce some categories of Pierre Bourdieu’s Theory of Fields and their relation with migration studies. Then, we describe our quali–quantitative methodology. Finally, we present and discuss our findings related to Brazilian futsal labor and migration context, as well as the influence of capitals on the players’ disposition for migration and habitus transformation in this process.
Bourdieusian Approach on Migration Studies
Pierre Bourdieu proposed to understand and explain the society through several fields, partially autonomous social spaces, with their own rules and history. Fields are composed by agents and groups differently positioned, shaping social structures (Bourdieu, 1993). Sport is an example of field (Bourdieu, 1978, 1984, 1988, 1993), as well as its subfields, which despite having some particularities, respect the major common structure. In the case of this study, futsal is considered a subfield of sport.
The social positions occupied by agents and groups within the fields and subfields, as well as their dispositions, depend on their possession of capitals (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992). Bourdieu proposed four types of capitals: Economic: … is immediately and directly convertible into money and may be institutionalized in the form of property rights. (Bourdieu, 1986, p. 47) Social: … is the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition. (Bourdieu, 1986, p. 51) Cultural: … can exist in three forms: in the embodied state, i.e., in the form of long-lasting dispositions of the mind and body; in the objectified state, in the form of cultural goods (pictures, books, dictionaries, instruments, machines, etc.), which are the trace or realization of theories or critiques of these theories, problematic, etc.; and in the institutionalized state, a form of objectification which must be set apart because, as will be seen in the case of educational qualifications, it confers entirely original properties on the cultural capital which it is presumed to guarantee. (Bourdieu, 1986, p. 47) Symbolic: a kind of … recognized authority … any property (any form of capital whether physical, economic, cultural or social) when it is perceived by social agents endowed with categories of perception which cause them to know it and to recognize it, to give it value … is the form taken by any species of capital whenever it is perceived through categories of perception that are the product of the embodiment of divisions or of oppositions inscribed in the structure of the distribution of this species of capital. (Bourdieu, 1998, p. 47)
Besides to impact over hierarchies, capitals also influence individuals’ habitus (Bourdieu, 1998), a set of dispositions that simultaneously works as a structure to agents’ choices and subjectivity, being structured by their agency and position within the field (Bourdieu, 1984). It works as “… a system of durable, transposable dispositions, structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures” (Bourdieu, 1977, p. 72). “In practice, it is the habitus, history turned into nature … is inveterate in us; he makes up the unconscious part of ourselves” (Bourdieu, 1977, pp. 78–79).
Thus, habitus is “… a generative and unifying principle which retranslates the intrinsic and relational characteristics of a position into an unitary lifestyle, that is, an unitary set of choices of persons, goods, practices” (Bourdieu, 1998, p. 8). In each new agent’s social position, its habitus suffers transformations, derivate from its capitals and their meaning within the fields (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992). Habitus is a product of a kind of slow social metamorphosis into the new social context, more than a temporary adaptation, as a result of agent’s history, being re-structured on a different shape, considering the previous durable dispositions, the new social structure and the future inscription of new dispositions (Bourdieu, 1977). A fraction of the habitus is composed by illusio, a perception that makes sense and worth to be part of the field or subfield and its struggles (Bourdieu, 1998), an “investment, or even libido. … lllusio is the fact of being caught up in and by the game of believing the game is ‘worth the candle’, or, more simply, that playing is worth the effort” (Bourdieu, 1998, pp. 76–77).
For Pierre Bourdieu, migration is a sociogeographic phenomenon that can be analyzed from sending and/or receiving places’ point of view (Bourdieu, 2004). His work involves analyzing and understanding why and to where people migrate, and how this process of habitus transformation happens (Erel, 2010), involving an inherent relationship between groups background and migration practices (Rye, 2011), considering processes of production and reproduction of social practices and structures, “ … through actions and practices, in communities and networks” (O’Reilly, 2013, p. 3).
During the migration process, the migrant occupies a new position in host community, being obligated to a habitus transformation to become “a local” (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 2000). Because of this, for migration studies based on this approach, it is crucial to describe the social context in which migrant lives before the moving (the first theme of the present article’s results section), to understand the development of migrants’ dispositions for migration (second theme), as well as the migrant agency in receiving places (third theme) (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, 2000).
Some researchers detach the social capital as a key point on migration studies, being the networks a product and producer of it (Erel, 2010; Meyer, 2001; Ryan, 2011). “The study of social networks in the migration and economic sociology literatures has generated a robust conceptual framework that complements the assimilation and transnational perspectives” (Guarnizo et al., 2019, p. 6). Dialectically, networks are based on members’ social capital and similar habitus (Oliver & O’Reilly, 2010), although they also contribute to the capitals accumulation (Bourdieu, 1986), supporting migrants’ habitus transformation (Ryan, 2011).
Networks are also important on the recruitment of athletic workers into the sports labor markets, being the “bridgeheads” a crucial role on this process (Elliott & Gusterud, 2018), as agents, sometimes more experienced migrants, that support the new ones in the settlement and employment processes (Meyer, 2001; Poli, 2010).
Method
This study is part of a larger qualitative research project, based on semi-structured interviews, which aims to investigate the career development of Brazilian men elite futsal players. For this specific article, quantitative data were also collected to provide information on athletes’ labor conditions and migration within Brazilian futsal subfield. This study obtained ethical approval from the Research Ethics Committee of the first author’s university.
Participants and Recruitment
The participants of this study were 28 Brazilian men elite futsal players, recruited according to the following criteria: (a) have participated in LNF matches between 2014 and 2016; (b) have already played at least one match on Brazilian senior men national futsal team; (c) were playing for Brazilian clubs during the period of the interviews. For this, to be a member of the senior national team roster was considered as a sign of elite sport level (Engh & Agergaard, 2015), these players being considered as high-skilled workers (Agergaard & Ungruhe, 2016; Allan & Moffat, 2014) within futsal subfield.
The group of participants were, in the dates of interviews, at an average of approximately 30 years old (30.1 ± 5.2) and had an experience of almost 12 years (11.9 ± 4.9) as elite futsal athletes.
Managers of five LNF clubs have worked as gatekeepers and provided access to players, as well as possible dates and adequate locations for interviews, not disturbing training and/or competition sessions.
Players were arbitrarily assigned with a number to assure anonymity.
Data Production/Collection
Qualitative data were produced on a semi-structured interview with each player, conducted by this article’s first author, lasted between 30 and 60 min, being digitally recorded and transcribed verbatim. Interviews were based on a five-section guide: personal background information; futsal career; leisure and sport experiences; social agents that influenced the players’ career development; training and competition routines.
Quantitative data on rosters 1 from all clubs of LNF 2013 (374 players), LNF 2016 (392 players), and LNF 2019 (362 players) were collected from LNF’s official websites (Confederação Brasileira de Futsal, 2013; LNF, 2016, 2019).
Data Analysis
Data from interview transcriptions were analyzed according to the Reflexive Thematic Analysis method (Braun & Clarke, 2019). After an inductive line-by-line analysis procedure, initial themes were created. Thus, sport labor migration on futsal career was theoretically analyzed (Braun & Clarke, 2006, 2012; Braun et al., 2016) producing codes according to the investigation goals and sociological categories from Pierre Bourdieu’s Theory of Fields (Bourdieu, 1977, 1984, 1986, 1993, 1998; Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992). These procedures led to the creation of preliminary analytical categories: elite level futsal is an unstable labor career; transfers through several clubs are constant on players’ careers; transnational migrations seem to provide a better labor condition; relations between instability and symbolic violence; diverse habitus among players; preference for establishment in one club; migration negative impacts on relatives’ life; networks as a source of capitals; networks’ role on habitus transformation. After that, themes were produced based on the grouping of these preliminary units, being reviewed and shaped to their final version: (a) Brazilian men futsal subfield’s labor context and its implications on players’ migrations; (b) players’ dispositions for sport labor migration: diversity of habitus and agency; and (c) players’ habitus transformation on migration: the influence of networks.
Quantitative data were analyzed and presented by descriptive statistics (total number, mean value, and standard deviation): (a) amount of years the 28 interviewed athletes have played in each club during their sport career; (b) comparison between players’ clubs in LNF 2013 and LNF 2016, creating two groups: those who played for the same club on both LNF editions and those who played for different clubs; (c) the same kind of comparison was done between players from LNF 2016 and LNF 2019.
All LNF clubs (both in 2013, 2016 and 2019) have their headquarters sited in different cities, meaning that all players’ transfers represented an action of mobility to other town.
Results and Discussion
Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992) suggested some methodological research steps on Reflexive Sociology: first, to map the field’s objective social structure, describing its agents, groups, and capitals; second, to analyze the habitus of agents and groups as well as the power relations among them.
Following this, and considering that both social structure and individual agency are dialectically important on career decision-making (Alexander, 2016) and on migrant action (O’Reilly, 2013), the description and analysis of results and discussion are divided into three themes: (a) Brazilian men futsal subfield’s labor context and its implications on players’ migrations; (b) players’ dispositions for sport labor migration: diversity of habitus and agency; and (c) players’ habitus transformation on migration: the influence of networks.
The first theme consists on a description of the objective structure of labor conditions and relations to migration within the Brazilian futsal subfield (because of this, it presents a more descriptive perspective in comparison to the second and third themes, being those more theoretically analytics). The second theme proposes a reflection on the development of players’ disposition for migration, as well as the differences among habitus that influenced their choices and decisions. The third theme reflects on the influence of capitals and networks on the athlete migrant habitus transformation.
Representative quotes, that have been translated from Portuguese into English languages and adjusted for readability, were included.
Brazilian Men Futsal Subfield’s Labor Context and Its Implications on Players’ Migrations
Within futsal subfield in Brazil, the action of migrate seems to be related to players’ job conditions. According to interviewees, elite futsal career is an unstable and uncertain labor activity. In Brazil, the constant mobility to work and living in different cities is a routine for men elite futsal players. It is mainly a product of the clubs’ fragile economic situation and the short-term informal characteristic of the employment agreements. The interviewees affirmed that players who could work in few clubs during labor career can be considered as privileged exceptions, corroborating professional football players’ perspective in England (Roderick, 2013) There is a failed professional futsal clubs system in Brazil. During the season, we do not know if all clubs will work on the next year. We do not have a real security, stability. (P20) There are many players working for clubs on fragile economic situation. They work for one year, or even six months, and in the end of the season, sometimes the club does not have funds anymore. The player does not know if will have a job on the next season. … When a proposal to work for another club appears, the player must to accept it, in order to guarantee a job for one season more. Constant migration happens mainly because of the instability condition of the labor sport career. (P24) Only the top level Brazilian players have a two or three yearlong employment contract. It is very rare to remain more than three years in the same club. (P21)
Players’ Permanence in Futsal Clubs.
Note. G = Goalkeeper.
This scenario of instability lived by Brazilian men elite futsal players, that is numerically worse than other contexts on the literature (Frick, 2007, 2009; Maguire, 2013; Roderick, 2013), seems to be tougher for sub-elite players (considered, in this study, are those who have never played for the Brazilian senior national team), in other words, the majority on LNF. Data from LNF 2013 and LNF 2016 2 show that the “permanence index” in the same club seems to be shorter than 3 years for most of the players. 3 Considering a group of 300 players from 15 clubs that participated in both LNF 2013 and LNF 2016, only 39 players (13.0%) played in the same club in LNF 2016 (Table 2).
Players’ Permanence in Clubs Between LNF 2013 and 2016.
Note. Clubs were not identified for ethical reasons. LNF = Liga Nacional de Futsal.
Clubs that did not participate in LNF 2016.
A similar scenario has been presented on the comparison between LNF 2016 and LNF 2019. Considering a group of 296 players from 14 clubs that participated in both LNF 2016 and LNF 2019, only 35 players (11.8%) played in the same club in LNF 2019 (Table 3).
Players’ Permanence in Clubs Between LNF 2016 and 2019.
Note. Clubs were not identified for ethical reasons. LNF = Liga Nacional de Futsal.
Clubs that did not participate in LNF 2019.
As part of this context of constant mobility, interviewed futsal players described it as a consequence of the unstable career in Brazilian futsal subfield. They pointed some of the following issues related to it: lack of formal employment contracts; predominance of image rights contracts (what guarantees the payment of money, but do not configure itself as a formal professional job agreement); some clubs’ noncompliance on the agreement with players; oral job agreements that permit clubs to fire or dismiss players during the season, without financial losses The most common model of job agreements is related to image rights … only the best financial and administrative structured clubs sign the work card
4
. … However, the only single club that signed my work card, in every single year they [club managers] fired me and hired again. It happened to don’t configure 2-year long contract term, what would imply some labor rights … So, both [image rights contract and work card less than 2-years long] don’t configure stability to players. If the club wants to fire you, they do. It only works to safeguard the club, not the player … To sign the work card is better [than right image contract]. It can guaranty some labor rights. (P26) Only the most important and economically strong Brazilian clubs sign a formal employment contract through the work card … most of LNF clubs do not do it. (P21) It is common that, in the middle of the season, some managers know, or believe, that the club will not play the finals. Thus, they fire some players to save money for the next season. It is possible to make it, because the oral agreements and the lack of formal employment contracts. (P22) Sometimes players are fired in the middle of the season. In some state leagues,
5
if someone has played for a club, he cannot play for another one in the same season. Thus, he needs to move to other state to work. (P25)
It seems to be the case of many Brazilian men elite futsal players. The lack of formal employment contract and the legal support structure an unfavorable scenario that does not make futsal labor migration as a product of simple free athletes’ choice. Actually, as Bourdieu (2013) proposes, it is an action related to specific structural conditions, especially to the possession or lack of capitals. Reinforcing this idea, for Elliott (2013, 2016), migration, in many cases, is a consequence of the lack of opportunity for a good career development.
Thus, migrations can be interpreted as strategies to maintain or to improve the agents’ position within a specific social structure through the accumulation of capitals (Alexander, 2016). In great extent, it is a response to the lack of local opportunity for good life conditions (Oliver & O’Reilly, 2010) or athletic professional career (Elliott & Maguire, 2008), based on a disposition to act according to the awareness that the outcomes are not certain and influenced by possible opportunities on receiving place (Carter, 2013).
Within this context, the transnational migration would be a possibility to reach a more stable labor condition (Elliott, 2013; Magee & Sugden, 2002). In the case of Brazilian futsal, better salaries and a larger confidence on the compliance on employment contracts seem to be attractive factors to work abroad. This belief happens especially in relation to Europe, where sport field seems to be better structured in relation to formal job contracts and migrants hosting, as in the case of football, where the Bosman law contributes to offer legal support to athletes (Binder & Findlay, 2012; Frick, 2007, 2009; Poli, 2010). Although the frequent mobility between clubs also happens in other countries, as in Italy (Tedesco, 2014), interviewees affirm that in some nations, as Spain, Russia and Portugal, in general, clubs have stronger economic situation and offer better job conditions in comparison to Brazil I worked for X
6
[one of the main and richest clubs in Portugal]. When I played there, I had a five-year long employment contract. (P5) I have played in Spain during four years long. In Italy, one year. In Russia, five years. … In Russia, I have played for the same club during four years long. (P27) In Spain, the employment contract is more respected than in Brazil. Here [in Brazil], only few clubs are compliant with the agreements within the contract. (P26)
The lack of stable job conditions creates a scenario of symbolic violence from clubs over players in Brazilian men futsal subfield, being a way to maintain the power relation and domination processes within the field (Bourdieu, 1993). Although the players’ symbolic sport capital related to elite athletic performance is an important component of their agency within futsal subfield (Marques & Marchi Júnior, 2019), it is not predominant compared with the club managers’ power based on economic capital (Coakley, 2017). The misrecognition of migrants’ capitals contributes to the imposing of symbolic violence over them (Huot, 2017).
The lack of formal job conditions on futsal labor career in Brazil, added to the players’ dependence of salary to live, making the athletes submit themselves to a fragile social situation based on the lack of security and autonomy on their own careers. Thus, the establishment and accomplishment of formal employment contract could work as a symbolic capital for players, which can provide a sensation of more stability and better job conditions.
Players’ Dispositions for Sport Labor Migration: Diversity of Habitus and Agency
The lack, or the noncompliance, of the formal employment contract influences players’ habitus, making their search for job in other places as a common practice on labor career, in other words, the disposition for migration. It is generated from the relation with the structural condition in the sending place and is transformed according to players’ social position and migratory agency, both consequences and influences on specific habitus.
The illusio in futsal subfield, as part of players’ habitus, keeps them involved within this uncertain and fragile labor scenario, facing the career issues according to their available capitals. The illusio makes players “… admit that the game is worth playing and that the stakes created in and through the fact of playing are worth pursuing” (Bourdieu, 1998, p. 77). It is also related to players’ depth involvement with investment on futsal career in detriment of others possibilities. The lack of diversified forms of capital, as well as preparation for a different profession, in some cases make players ignore the possibility to work in other area. For some groups in Brazil, the school education, as an example, is not a real possibility for social mobility (Rial, 2008; Soares et al., 2016; Souza et al., 2008), being sport a manner to reach a better life condition, especially due to the early financial rewards (Tedesco, 2014) I am 20 years old, and I earn between R$2000.00 and R$3000.00.
7
I think that is enough. Why will I study? In comparison to sport, it is harder to get a job with this salary through study in Brazil. So, I will play until 40 years old earning my money. I just think in the present. Because of this, I and others [players] do not valorize studies and education. (P23)
Within this context, players mentioned two main criteria they consider when choosing a club: the confidence in the accomplishment of the employment agreement and to earn better salaries I had four club proposals for this current season, but I liked the management procedures of B
8
[a LNF club]. The managers signed a formal employment contract and pay me the salary as agreed. Here [on club B], I will never have troubles. (P13) The salary has a great influence [on the choice for a club]. I have wife and children and it [money] is important. Futsal is a short-term career … Not all clubs offer good conditions for players to remain for a long period. This [money] has a heavy weight on the decision for migration. (P25)
This scenario of instability and the fragile agreements between athletes and clubs include different groups of players, with specific habitus and ways of agency, which dialectically, arise from and provide diverse accesses to capitals (Bourdieu, 1984; Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992). Although some players choose the destination mainly seeking to accumulate economic capital (as the example of P25 previous quotes), others prioritize the permanence in the same club. According to P20, this choice can offer a specific kind of social capital, based on a deep connection with fans, managers, friends, and family It [did not migrate] was an option. I had a proposal from XX
9
[a very important futsal club in Spain]. Then I thought: “It is not just about the money.” I was very happy and satisfied on that moment in my club in Brazil. We were the LNF current champions. I used to play many minutes per game, playing well. I was being called frequently to the Brazilian senior national team. I was afraid to move and lose all these conditions. I preferred do not migrate on that moment. … The choice to abdicate money or other things strengthened the connections with Brazilian fans, family and friends. (P20)
This habitus’ diversity would be originated not only from players’ positions in futsal subfield, but also from positions in sending and receiving places and communities (Bourdieu, 2004; Bourdieu & Wacquant, 2000). The possession of capitals that players accumulated before and during migration influences their positions and habitus, and acts as an access to new forms of capitals in receiving places, which is a very important factor for players’ migration disposition and success.
Players’ Habitus Transformation on Migration: The Influence of Networks
Players’ discourses suggest that, even with a promising economic capital provided by migration, in general, they do not like to move, and prefer to stay on the same club for a long-term period building a stable social life and routine in one single city. Migration offers access to job and economic capital. However, it can decrease the access to other types of capitals. Interviewees say that migration has a negative impact on their relatives’ life and on their own, imposing difficulties and challenges to be faced, as to build strong and lasting friendships (social capital), for relatives’ professional career (economic capital), besides the tough process of habitus transformation, which becomes constantly in flow As longer player stays in the same club is better. Stability is good for his performance, personal life, his wife and children. (P21) I would like it [to play for the same club for a long-term period]. If I had a daughter, I would like that she has friends, and studies in the same school for more than one yearlong, to grow up closer from the same classmates. I do not want to live one year in each city, do not have an established residence. (P23) If you are married and move to other city every single year, it is tough for your wife gets a good job, to build a professional career. (P28) Most of my friends are from childhood time. They still live in the same city as my parents. Due to the constant moves, it is hard [for the migrant] to make new friendships. (P15)
Migration demands the establishment of new social ties. Players and their families are constantly getting in and out of new cultural contexts and social structures, “living in mobility” (Schrooten et al., 2016, p. 1203), what causes troubles for the family organization and relationship (Roderick, 2012). In each moving, they become part of a different network, influencing their daily life in the receiving place (Agergaard & Ryba, 2014; Fry & Bloyce, 2017; Guarnizo et al., 2019; Poli, 2010; Roderick, 2012).
Networks have a central role in the players’ habitus transformation processes, being a community that can provide mainly social capital and other forms of support for migrants. The volume of the social capital possessed by a given agent, “depends on the size of the network of connections he can effectively mobilize and on the volume of the capital (economic, cultural or symbolic) possessed in his own right by each of those to whom he is connected” (Bourdieu, 1986, p. 51).
Migrants tend to search for partners with similar habitus within networks, to reproduce a social position and power relation (Oliver & O’Reilly, 2010; Ryan, 2011). This migrants’ participation on networks’ dynamic can start before or during the period of contact with a possible employer club (Elliott & Gusterud, 2018; Poli, 2010). Players described the influence from “bridgeheads” on migration, as relatives, friends and career agents/intermediaries I have suggested for the club to accept my brother
10
to play in the youth team. (P12) Friends have already indicated me for some clubs. When I was not well known [as a good player within futsal subfield], they helped me a lot. (P13) To move abroad, it is necessary one [career agent as intermediary], because the language. There are other many things [issues as culture, laws], and the [career] agent can help us. (P25)
Players also described some challenges faced in the receiving place based on the support from network. Difficulties related to bad sport performance, necessity to take decisions about new contracts, lack of social relations and legal issues were faced with the support from friends and partners, normally involved within futsal subfield, such as players, coaches, and career agents I was playing in Iran on that time. It was tough. They have a very different culture. People were receptive, but it was not easy. I am very thankful to the goalkeeper coach and a teammate. Both are Brazilians. They helped me a lot. (P3) I was not playing many minutes as I wanted. Then I received a proposal from a less important [Brazilian] club, which only participates in state level championships. I wanted to play more minutes [per game] and was thinking on accept that. Then, some older teammates suggested me to remain on the same club. They told me “money is not everything in life” and said “it is important to administrate the career in major clubs. Stay at least one year more and see what will happen.” Influenced by these friends, I quit from the transfer and remained [in the same club]. (P20) My transfer to Russia was negotiated by an [career] agent as intermediary. However, I had a problem on my first day there. The club’s managers did not want to pay me the flight ticket to get back to Brazil for Christmas holiday. But it was agreed and formalized in the employment contract. I asked the agent to help me and he did it. It was great, because it would be harder without him. (P24)
In situations of lack of support from network, the habitus transformation was described as tough and the cause, according to P24, for the decision to leave a job in Spain I had a three-month experience in a second division club in Spain. I was 19 years old and alone, no family or friends. I opted to return to Brazil. I cannot cope and face that [situation] alone. (P24)
It seems to be the case of interviewed players’ experiences, which are positively influenced by teammates, career agents/intermediaries, relatives, and coaches on the constant habitus transformation from “migrant” to “local.” This metamorphosis was a product of the accumulation of capitals and the new social position occupied by players in each new moving to work. It happened even when this sociocultural adaptation must to be fast and took short-term because the constant mobility process described by players.
Concluding Thoughts
The aims of this study were to analyze and describe the Brazilian men elite futsal players’ job conditions and their influence on athletes’ dispositions for labor sport migration. The Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological approach supported the analysis and description of social context and players’ dispositions for action.
The results of this present study contribute for a better understanding of the social conditions that influence sport workers’ disposition for migration, as well as to compare different social scenarios, increasing the range of reflections about migration studies through not much explored fields. Besides that, it can subsidize reflections on an undertheorizing scenario (Southern hemisphere) on migration research works, related to the influence of origin places on the engagement of migrants into the receiving places’ sociocultural context, and subsidize practical actions on players’ labor career management both in Brazil and abroad.
Interviewed players described the necessity of migration as a consequence of the labor career instability, as well as the way to reach better jobs and life conditions. They also showed that to remain in the same city for a long period is a wished privilege within the Brazilian men elite futsal subfield. It evidences the dispositions from Brazilian elite futsal players on a general migratory dynamics, where they are positioned as high skilled workers, considered as competent to deliver good performances in several places and cultures. Thus, these athletes are involved in intranational and transnational labor markets that offer some advantages, but also imply on social issues not always well accepted by them.
Within this context, and on interpretative terms, the findings of this study evidences the existence of social issues related to sport labor migration, associated with not ideal job conditions within futsal subfield in Brazil. It can be understood as a context where players occupy a disadvantaged social position in comparison to clubs within sport field, which does not offer the power to control all the ways of investment on their own careers. Besides that, it also forces athletes and their families to a way of life with constant moves and difficulties to establish cultural and social roots on a place to live for a longer term.
Even with some strategic mobility to reach better wages and financial condition described by some participants of this study, clubs’ symbolic power seems to be predominant over players’ desire to develop a career based on long stays in the same city. It happens especially because of the model of the most job agreements, making labor relations more instable within this subfield, letting futsal players to experience a constant process of habitus transformation through mobility. This social metamorphosis was a consequence of positions’ changing within different social structures, as well as the access to certain capitals in each new place. The support from networks seemed essential for players’ mobility success. However, issues as relatives’ inclusion within new communities’ life were described as relevant troubles.
Comparing the results of this study with the football context in Brazil, it is possible to mention that the establishment of formal job agreements is more common on football, following the normative concept of “professional sport activity” into the Brazilian law, characterized by “financial rewards agreed through specific formal sport labor contract with the sport institution” (Brazil, 2011, Art. 28). According to the results of this present research, this scenario is something not available to all elite futsal athletes.
All interviewed players can be considered as successful agents within sport field because of their elite athletes’ status. Besides that, and consequently, they are also successful migrants, who face this unstable labor scenario and the constant habitus transformation to remain involved within futsal subfield. It demonstrates a strong illusio and possession of relevant capitals in this social space.
To give voice to the protagonists of the sport field (athletes) is an important mean to understand social issues related to this social space (Marques & Marchi Júnior, 2019). Even considering all the rich contributions that interviews can provide, as interesting retrospective and long-term perspectives (Côté et al., 2005), and to present characteristics of social agents’ habitus (Bourdieu, 2008), it is possible to consider as limitation of this study, the fact that the data were produced mainly from players’ point of view about the investigated topic. As a way to soft the effects of this limitation, the presented quantitative data on LNF club rosters helped to add others sources of information to complement the analysis.
Thus, considering the relevant and innovative contributions from this study, more research works can also add new elements for this topic, from the point of view of other social agents involved within futsal subfield (coaches, managers, career agents/intermediaries). Similarly, the access to documents related to players’ job agreements can also offer important information, being it something not well informed by some participants (understandably) in this study, despite interviewer’s attempts. It can also provide reflections on athletes’ aspirations and issues regarding labor career on this and other sports and countries.
As suggestions for practical applications, we can mention the support for future actions related to the implementation of formal job contracts, sport financial support, and the importance to make strong the networks in receiving places. It can provide possibilities of changing this social and labor reality; transforming migration on a tool to improve job and life conditions; and not only as a solution against instability and insecurity in athletes’ labor career.
Footnotes
Acknowledgment
We thank all players and clubs’ managers who collaborated to interviews and Illgner Veber Garcia Alves for the support on quantitative data collection.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by “National Council for Scientific and Technological Development—CNPq” (grant number: 442478/2014-3).
