career sequences, organizational status and inequality in european professional football
TRANSCRIPT
Career sequences, organizational status and
inequality in European professional football
Thijs A. Velema
National Taiwan University – Department of Sociology
Academia Sinica – Institute of Sociology
Two types of careers
Careers within organizations
Image courtesy of digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Careers across organizations
My goal for today
• Distinguish and describe inequality in career attainment of professional football players
• Get an idea about the timing and mechanisms leading to career inequality
Organizational status hierarchies and career inequality
High
Middle
Low
• Organizational status hierarchy• Groups of organizations• Ordinal segregation• Social closure
• Career inequality• Typical career patterns • Location in status hierarchy
Data and methods
• Sequence analysis of 8,550 players• Born 1970 – 1984• Highest two leagues top 7 EU leagues
• Team status – performance past five years• League rank * league strength in EU• Ten status groups with 10% of ranking• Lower league & other countries
• Identify 7 career groups• State distribution plot
Top of the pyramid
High
Middle
Low
• 5% of players• Rapid entry• Stay in the top
teams• Closure
The middle groups
High
Middle
Low
• 40% of players• Other countries
slow entry• Enter at medium
level, move up• Rapid entry• Enter at high
level, move down• Transitions occur
Low status players
High
Middle
Low
• 55% of players• Rapid entry,
rapid exit• Bottom half,
lower leagues, other countries
• Short spans• Frequent
transitions
Conclusion
High
Middle
Low
• Examine inequality within organizational status hierarchy• Seven types of careers at high, middle, and low
status teams• Divergence in early twenties
• Further questions• Interaction player and team• Focus on transitions
Thank you for your attention!!
Questions?
Attribution for pictures
Edgar Davids (Juventus F.C., no.26) clashing with Gennaro Gattuso (A.C.Milan), by soccer illustrated
Argentina-Holanda_1978, by Archivo ClarinBundesarchiv Bild 183-N0716-0314, Fussball-WM, BRD – Niederlandse 2-1,
by Rainer MittelstadtHowitis, as appeared on http://www.shof.msrcsites.co.uk