Organizational status identities and the mobility of professional

football players in EuropeThijs Velema

National Taiwan University, Department of Sociology Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica

Number of clubs in career

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 >150%

2%

4%

6%

8%

10%

12%

14%

Transfer fees

Free transfer

Between 1 and 5 million

Between 5 and 10 millionMore than 10 million

Football as a precarious profession

•Players move very often•Majority for free, some for a lot of money•Mostly within countries, some across borders•How are organizations involved?

Organizational goals and labor mobility

Reputation

Status

Labor mobility

Situatedness and status/reputation

High

Middle

Low

A Status as heuristic category• High status teams - reinforce status• Low status teams – survival

B

Two problems• High status care for their reputation• Low status players moving up

Player importance and status/reputation

Fringe players Key players

High status teams: sell them for status

High status teams: keep them for reputation

Low status teams: sell them for status

Who moves?

•Players in high status teams•Fringe players•Team status * player importance•Fringe players in high status teams•Key players in low status teams

EH analysis of player transfers

Variable Direction Lateral Downward InternationalTeam status

.9038*** .8481*** .3629***

Player importance

-.0354* -.5907*** -.3556***

Team status * player importance

-.2173*** -.2026*** -.2430***

Organizations and labor mobility

•Labor mobility and organizational goals•Status identity as heuristic category•Employee importance and fields within fields

Further questions

•Other actors•Conflicts in organizations•Consequences for football•Other industries

Thank you for your attention!!

Questions?www.thijsvelema.com

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