From local symbols to global corporations - the case of professional football

By the time Glasgow Celtic won the coveted European Champions’ Cup in Lisbon in 1967, the whole starting eleven was made up of boys born and grown up in Glasgow (http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/25/newsid_5071000/5071020.stm). This team was generally to known as the “Lisbon Lions”. When facing the Olympique Lyonnais in December 2003 in the group stage of the Champions League competition, there were no Scots in the starting eleven, let alone any Glasgowians (http://www.uefa.com/competitions/ucl/history/season=2003/round=1712/match=1056877/report=lu.html). What has happened during the 36 years?When a Frenchman Arsene Wenger was appointed as the manager of a London club Arsenal in the autumn of 1996, only 4 out of 34 first team players were non-British (in here, also the Welsh, Irish, Northern Irish and Scots are included as British), and the whole defence was of English origin; this legendary defence line being Dixon-Keown-Adams-Winterburn. Now the only Englishman making into the first team is Theo Walcott, usually a substitute (World Soccer November 10-11); (http://www.arseweb.com/history/faq/faq97.html.)

It is commonly recognised that the best foreign players bring about new playing styles and cultures, and more class. In seven years, between 1992 and 1999, the number of foreign players increased from 11 to 2000, by 1800% in England. This growing internationalisation has in fact meant outsourcing labour force in English football corporations, resulting to growing unemployment of English players. (Freeman 2000.)Since the early 1990, a rapid professionalisation and industrialisation has occurred in football, mostly due to pay TV and Bosman case. This development has brought about an increased friction between the traditional picture of football representing locality and the function of football being a world-wide entertainment industry.

Here I will present a picture of the professional football as a case of the global shift, the football clubs being trans-national corporations (TNCs) supported worldwide but with a local essence. The relationships between TNCs, nations and states are also studied and the increased friction between locality and trans-national capital. Different relationships between the state, nation, locality and identity in football are presented. A special case in point is the outsourcing of acquisition of work force, in here football players. I will present a generalised model of football players’ career path, based on the prestige, wealth and performance of football clubs and stage of development of a football player.

The global shift is evident in football in the increasing moving of work force and capital across the borders; this is studied by using examples occurred in football. As a theoretical background and for illustrating, how the varying social and spatial dimensions in attachment into football of different actors involved with football can be understood, I will use the notions of trans-nationalisation by Peter Dicken (2007) and Bartlett & Ghoshal (1998).

The football clubs become TNCs: the launch of the Premiership and Champions League

The English Football League, the oldest of national football league competitions, was launched in 1888 (http://www.fchd.btinternet.co.uk/lghist/fl/fl.htm). It was to set an example for other national football league competitions. The highest division of the competition was later to form the Premiership, independent and above of the English Football League.

As the interest to "measure" which one of the national football champions was the best increased, the oldest and most prestigious international club competition, the European Champions' Cup was launched for the season of 1955-1956, being later modified into the Champions League in 1992. (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-06/03/content_336218.htm); (http://www.fotballen.eu/Emner/champions_league.html).
TV broadcasting of football dates back to the late 30s, but before the early 1990s, it was a rare treat. The occurrence of the Premiership and the Champions League practically coincided with the satellite TV in the early 1990s. The introduction of the satellite TV has caused or at least triggered the increased flow of capital involved in professional football. The BSkyB TV contract from 1992 opened up new horizons for clubs to sign better players, who would in turn attract larger crowds and sell more fan merchandise. Now television football has become from a supporting industry of football into a major industry in its own right, attracting more overseas fans with a mere virtual reality relationship to the clubs (Freeman 2000).

The growing number of audiences also meant that the investment into football become more attractive. (Brown 1998.) The turnover in the English Premier League rose since its launch in 1992 by 350% in nine years. (Freeman 2000). At present, the income of the English Premier League clubs from overseas television rights is 625 million pounds a year (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/7232390.stm);
(http://www.my-youth-soccer-guide.com/soccer-history-timeline.html).


Club, nation, state, locality: cases of different relationships between them

The rivalry between football clubs is often the most intense when between two local rivals.
The football clubs can serve as representants of local community, as containers for cultural, religious and political, localised practices and even as a national manifestations, when the nation state is lacking. The more intense the rivalry becomes if the local dimension is further divided culturally, politically, ethnically or religiously. Next I will present different relationships between football clubs, nations, states and localities in globalised football.


Football clubs and locality

In Roma and Milan, two major Italian football centres with two major football clubs, one club (AS Roma in Rome and AC in Milan) is traditionally rooted to the labour movement and to the socialist parties, while the other is mainly supported amongst the right-wing (Lazio in Rome and Inter Milan in Milan) (Giulianotti et al 2001). However, these political ties were put under some controversy as the Italian right-wing prime minister Silvio Berlusconi became the club president at AC Milan (http://www.sportspundit.com/team/37/); (http://www.theromanforum.com/articolo.asp?ID=306).
In Scotland, the rivalry between the two clubs, Celtic and Rangers has been furtherintensified with the intertwining of religion and by the concentration of success insidethe Scottish league as these two clubs have usually shared the domestic spoils between them. The contests between Celtic, a club traditionally supported amongst the Catholics and Rangers, supported amongst the Protestants, are referred as the Old Firm. The transfer of a Catholic Celtic player Mo Johnston to Rangers caused an uproar (http://www.mollymaguirescsc.com/celtichist.htm);
(http://worldsoccer.about.com/od/scottishclubs/p/rangers.htm); (Barrett 2001).

Wimbledon was just one of the least known of the dozens of London based professional football clubs, when it by surprise entered the English FA cup final in 1988. The "Crazy Gang" struck the most by surprise by winning the final (Barrett 2001), and later on, by promoting into the English first division. The fairytale was over at the turn of the century. The club went down two divisions in four years and went into administration.The club was then rescued from bankruptcy by Peter Winckelman and transferred from London into Milton Keynes. The loyal localist supporters of Wimbledon established then a new club, AFC Wimbledon to maintain the local traditional attachment to the club
(http://arkiv.alltidfotball.no/?module=articles&tournament=7&id=488); (http://www.afcwimbledon.co.uk/history.php?Psection_id=4&Psub_section_id=6&squad=).

Supporters demand that players of their favourite club remain loyal to their clubs. As the rivalry between local competitors is usually the fiercest, it also is most unthinkable for supporters that a player switches from one local club to its local rival, such feat representing almost blasphemy. When the English defender Sol Campbell went from Tottenham to its local rival Arsenal, he was regard as a traitor, “Judas” by the Tottenham faithfuls (http://www.123football.com/players/c/sol-campbell/index.htm).Still, there are some exceptions of the rule, perhaps the best known in Italy, more precisely, in Milan based clubs. Defenders Franco Baresi and Paolo Maldini have played all of their career in AC Milan and defender Giuseppe Bergomi has played only for Inter Milan (http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/football/paolo-maldini.html); (http://salpacino66.tripod.com/soccer.htm); (http://www.planetworldcup.com/LEGENDS/bergomi.html).

Club, country, nations and leagues: different relationships
The small emperorship of Monaco has a notable football club of its own, AC Monaco. It plays in the French league as Monaco has scarcely any domestic players (http://www.asm-fc.com/).

The two Welsh clubs, Cardiff and Swansea play in the English league. In fact, a Welsh football league exists, but these two clubs have been accepted to play in the more competitive English league (http://www.cardiffcityfc.premiumtv.co.uk/page/Welcome); (http://www.swanseacity.premiumtv.co.uk/page/Welcome). This represents an interesting relationship between nations, states and clubs: there are four nations “inside” one state, but the participation in league competitions is transnational.

United Kingdom is one country with four national teams: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. How is this possible? The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the main governing body of international football was founded in 1904, England being one of the founders. The Welsh, Scottish and Irish football associations were accepted as members of FIFA already in 1905, this allowing them to have national teams of their own (http://www.history.com/minisite.do?content_type=Minisite_Generic&content_type_id=839&display_order=2&mini_id=1343).As there is only one state - Great Britain - the question of eligibility for playing for the British teams represents some controversies and at least creative interpretation of homestead. The commonplace practice has been that the winner takes all, meaning that the strongest association – being England - takes the first pick of the bunch. If a British player has hardly any prospects to represent England at international level, the competing other British football associations study hard the heritage of the player. For example, if the player has once lived in Northern Ireland or has Northern Irish parentage or grand-parentage, he is eligible for Northern Ireland if he wishes so. The case of a Manchester United midfielder Darron Gibson is revealing; a Northern Ireland born player, representing an English club, being ineligible to represent Northern Ireland as he has already played for Ireland
(http://www.worldcupblog.org/world-football/fifa-face-impossible-decision-on-irish-eligibility.html).
When states are lacking, the football clubs may serve as the containers of distinctive cultural practices. Two examples of this include FC Barcelona in Spain and Assyriska in Sweden, both of them boosting and representing the national sentiment of nations without states (according to Dicken 2007, 174-177).
The football club with more registrated supporters than any other football club in the world, FC Barcelona is often referred as "Mes que en club" (More than a club). For many Catalans, it represents their national pride, being a sort of their national team, compensating the lack of internationally recognised state. The games between Barcelona and its arch rival Real Madrid, another Spanish giant, are in fact manifestations of the Catalan will of independency from the mainland Spain. This rivalry was established during regime of General Franco, himself an ardent supporter of Real Madrid (World Soccer January 2007); (http://www.fcbarcelona.cat/web/english/club/historia/introduccio/introduccio.html);
(http://www.columbia.edu/~xs23/catala/articles/2006/more_than_a_club/more_than_a_club.htm).Another such example - albeit on a much smaller scale - is to be found is Sweden. The promotion of Assyriska into the top-flight of Swedish football attracted some international media attraction, as it was founded by immigrants of Assyrian origin. When the Assyriska was playing in the Swedish league, it was followed by the Assyrians worldwide considering it to represent sort of a lacking national team (http://www.assyria.se/default_5.asp.)

Added friction and challenge to the locality: the foreign ownership

Generally speaking, the capital flows from developed countries to the less developed or developing countries. The influx of capital takes various forms; it is evident in football merchandising, employees' contracting, in the ownership and sponsorship deals. However, there have lately been some indications that the direction of the cash flow is changing. Many of the new big “players” in business come from developing or transitional economies.

At present, 10 out of the 20 clubs of the English Premier League football, are owned by foreigners. Or more precisely, as the English Premier League clubs are commercial PLC’s (Public Limited Companies), the major share holder was non-British in 50% of the clubs.

The acquisition of a London based club, Chelsea by a Russian multi-billionaire Roman Abramovitch set an example of subsequent acquisitions of that sort; another English club, Portsmouth, is now bankrolled by another Russian, Alexander Gaidamak and Manchester City has been acquired by the prime minister of Thailand, Thaksin Shinavatra (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3036838.stm); (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/p/portsmouth/5195590.stm); (http://www.helium.com/tm/310781/prime-minister-thailand-thaksin).

Sponsorship deals entered a new era when a Russian based gas company, Gazprom struck a deal with a German club Schalke (http://www.schalke04.de/sponsoren.html). The sponsors are not involved with sports for their sheer benevolence; they want something in return. A Londoner club of Arsenal, even a new stadium with greater capacity has been made possible by the capital from the Emirates flying company; as a result, this new stadium is called the Emirates Stadium. In Korea, a local club is now called as Chonbuk Motors after their main sponsor (World Soccer December 2006.).
The foreign capital brings about an added change of competitiveness in footballcompetitions. Still, not all have a positive attitude towards this. The traditionalists,mainly local supporters are in some cases protesting against that their team has been taken over by the foreign hands. In England, Manchester United was recently acquired by an American businessman Malcolm Glazer and by the American International Group (AIG) (http://www.manutd.com/default.sps?pagegid={235041B8-C516-4517-8D04-AEEBB5882B8A}&sponsors=aig); (http://www.aigcorporate.com/corpsite/index.html); (http://www.cbc.ca/sports/columns/newsmakers/malcolm_glazer.html). As a protest and as a manifestation of concern, some supporters launched a new club, United of Manchester, known as the “Fans Club”. This organisation of fans has been seen as a counter-reaction to the growing power of commercialism in football (Brown 1998); (http://www.malcolmglazer.com/); (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/m/man_utd/4541093.stm); (http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=1961184755).

The prestige, wealthiness and performance of clubs, leagues and countries

The wealth frequently brings about success, allowing the football clubs to strike the economically most advantageous deals with the best possible players. As the success is rewarded with significant prizes, it also attracts the sponsors, this leading to better means to compete. As the added capital in football has benefited most the top football clubs, they have launched a negotiating body, the G 14, representing the 14 most prestigious clubs from the most prestigious European leagues (World Soccer January 2007).The performance of football clubs is summarised in the UEFA seeding system, where the success of clubs is put in order in respect of nations. The lower a country is placed in the rankings, the more difficult it becomes for a club from that country to enter the club competitions, most notably the coveted Champions League. The UEFA seedings are topped by Spain, followed closely by England and Italy (http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uefa/data/method3/crank2006.html). This means that the two clubs best placed in their national league competitions have an automatic entry to the Champions League, and the 3rd and 4th placed teams from these leagues have to play only one qualifying round to enter the competition. In turn, clubs from countries like Andorra, San Marino and Montenegro have to play three qualifying rounds in order to enter the Champions League (http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uefa/access2007.html).
The club team ranking for individual European club teams suggests that the success isconcentrated into a select few European countries. In the top 10, 9 club teams come from the three countries – Spain, England and Italy - the best ranked in the European club team rankings. (http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uefa/data/method3/trank2007.html). The best football players tend to ply their trade in the most prestigious football leagues. This notion is supported by the voting of the best football player of the year. In 2006, all players in the top ten played either in the Spanish, English or Italian leagues (World Soccer Jan 2007). That the most prestigious football clubs can afford the best players - often also the most expensive ones - is further supported by the list of the most expensive player transfers ever, as all the ten most expensive transfer deals are conducted by either the Spanish, English or Italian football clubs (http://www.top-ten-10.com/sports/football/football_transfers.htm) (list is based on the situation of the June 2007).As Spain, Italy and England are traditional football countries, the competitiveness of their national leagues was largely of domestic origin. Lately, major football players as well as well-known managers have been attracted to clubs from countries with little or no football history and culture. The wages paid in the US, in Japan and in some of the Arab countries are competitive enough even when compared with their more illustrious European rivals but as the general standard of football in those countries is relatively poor, usually the big stars of yesterday are there for their last pay check. In footballing terms countries like Japan or Qatar might be developing countries but in economical terms, certainly not.

For instance, players in the Qatar league in the season 2006-2007 included renowned players at the twilight of their careers; best known players of the Qatar league were the French players Frank Lebouef, Marcel Desailly and Christoph Dugarry - all players from the French World Cup winner team of 1998 - Dutch Ronald de Boer, the Spaniard Fernando Hierro and Pep Guardiola, Argentinians Gabriel Batistuta, Claudio Caniggia and German Stefan Effenberg. Signings of Qatar League include not only well-known players from major football countries but also managers (World Soccer Nov 2006, 18-22); (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ittihad_(Jeddah)#Notable_former_players); (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._League).The best known recent example of this development is the transfer of David Beckham to Los Angeles Galaxy (http://www.davidbeckham.com/). Still, this phenomenon is not quite without precedents. Already in the 70s major stars like Pele, Franz Beckenbauer and George Best were attracted to New York Cosmos (World Soccer Jan 2007); (http://www.nycosmos.com/cosmos/chstage.html). The signing of well-known players help the clubs attract bigger audiences and to market their merchandise but also sets an inspiring example for the junior development, giving the local junior players well-known idols to watch and the signing of established managers aims to develop the local know-how in football (World Soccer Nov 2006).


Outsourcing the players’ market; the capital logic of players' transfers

Football is a representative case of movement of labour force across national borders. Generally speaking, the football market is a winner-takes-all market, where the most prestigious clubs are the primary movers in the corporative industry of football. Still, players are not quite without a say in the movement of labour force.

A telling example of labour mobility is the French player Nicolas Anelka. The money involved with his transfers from one club to another went up to 115 million EUR when he went from Bolton to Chelsea in the January 2008. During his professional career, Anelka has played for 9 different clubs in 4 different countries (http://www.sportsya.com/english/news.php/The_moves_of_Nicolas_Anelka__Chelsea_FC__amount_to_115_million_euros.html?id=168322&id_estruc=283); (http://www.footballdatabase.com/index.php?page=player&Id=173&pn=Nicolas_Sebastien_Anelka).
Usually the non-costliest workforce is to found in so called developing countries. Such is the case also in football. As there is a wealthy account of football players in Brazil, being the most successful country in world football, there are currently (22nd of February, 2008) 585 Brazilian football players plying their trade in Europe. Practically all of the European leagues are staffed by the Brazilian work force, the greatest coverage of Brazilians probably for linguistic reasons being in Portugal (140) as Brazil used to be a Portuguese colony. There are a notable account of Brazilians even in countries formerly part of the Soviet Union and in emerging countries like Romania, Poland, Moldova, Lithuania, Macedonia, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Belarus and Azerbaijan, and Bulgaria. Peripheries in football terms like Faroe Islands and Cyprus, Andorra and Albania are also represented in the list of countries employing Brazilian football players (http://www.answers.com/topic/list-of-brazilian-football-players-in-europe).In addition to the emigration of Brazilian players, since the 80s the world has seen an internationalisation of African football. There are currently African players playing in 18 European leagues, the largest proportion in France (130). Often the African players first emigrate to France and then to third countries with a more wealthy football league, such as England, Spain, Italy or Germany. One example of this is to be found later on in this presentation.

The African Cup of Nations, the African competition of national teams therefore hurts the French league most, as many clubs struggle to get a competitive side during the competition as their African employers are representing their countries in the national teams tournament. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African_football_players_in_Europe);
(http://sport.setanta.com/en/Sport/News/Football/2008/01/04/ACN-Ligue-1-stars-going-to-Africa-/).


Who owns a player? Towards an increased mobility of football players

In the early 1990s, a Belgian footballer Jean-Marc Bosman sued his old club RFC Liege, the Belgian football association and the FIFA for preventing him to transfer into another club. In 1996, the European Court of Justice upheld his complaint, and since then, European players with no contracts have been able to move between football clubs without a transfer fee. This case helped to develop new legislation for protecting labour rights of football players. It also stressed the central European principle of free movement of labour force, now also applied to the professional football (Barrett 2001); (Freeman 2000); (http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-242668/football-soccer#844743.hook); (http://www.liv.ac.uk/footballindustry/bosman.html).In the spring of 2005, three Nigerian players aged 17 were scouted by the Lyn Oslo and their player rights were purchased by the Lyn. The best-known of these was John Obi Mikel, awaking soon the interest of some of the most prestigious continental football clubs. In 29th April 2005, Mikel signed a deal with Manchester United, only two weeks later having signed another contract with another English club, FC Chelsea. In the summer of 2006, the two English clubs struck a deal between them, allowing the Manchester United to be compensated by Chelsea, the accurate details and conditions of this agreement being not known (http://www.fotballservice.no/tippeligaen/lyn/index.php); (http://pub.tv2.no/nettavisen/innenriks/article1597820.ece).
The two most talented Argentine footballers of their generation, Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano were sold from Argentina to a Brazilian club called Corinthians. This case struck the world of football by surprise, as it was by no means usual that Argentine players would go to Brazil, especially as it was expected that some of the major European clubs with more purchasing power would buy them (World Soccer Jan 2007).How was this possible? A cosmopolitan (British) businessman called Kia Joorabchian had become a major shareholder in the Brazilian club, using his company Media Sport Investment (MSI) as the negotiating party of the deal and as the major sponsor of the club. There have also been unproven speculations that the players in fact were not owned by Joorabchian or the club but by a third party, Roman Abramovich, the major shareholder of Chelsea and also a shareholder in MSI.In the autumn of 2006, another twist occurred in the saga as the Argentines weretransferred into West Ham United, a medium-sized English club, again this time not being purchased by a “big” club. As the contract details and ownership relationship was far from clear, West Ham sold the players forward, wanting to avoid a possible action from governing bodies of football. West Ham was fined £5.5 and Tevez sold to Manchester United and Mascherano borrowed to Liverpool respectively(http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,1563,1370763,00.html); (http://www.carlostevez.net/).

Nursery or feeder clubs, farm teams

It is common that the TNCs outsource some of their activities to smaller companies, often located in Third World countries. One form of outsourcing is to use certain - often geographically wide-spread - lesser companies as suppliers, providing the major company with resources it is lacking. (Dicken 2007.) This is also evident in football, the practical difference in implementing this strategy being that usually the “Third World” is being replaced by another club of lesser wealth or by a less competitive league in the developed world, in countries like Sweden, Belgium or Norway. (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_19990116/ai_n9654003).

The using of suppliers in football is called as using nursery or feeder clubs. This means that a major football club strikes a strategic deal with another club, aiming to “nurse” fringe players at smaller clubs, providing them with invaluable match practice (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/low/sports_talk/1738561.stm). If subsequently the player sent to smaller club develops so that the primary employer wishes to have him back, then the player is sent back to his “owner” club. Companionship of another type is when the more prestigious club has a deal with a lesser club, allowing the more prestigious club to have the upper hand in possible permanent transfer deals of players. So, if an “owner” club wishes to acquire another player and if the “feeder” club has got an appropriate one, then the deal can be accomplished without difficulties.The examples of such deals, when financially the wealthiest clubs residing in England, Italy, Spain or perhaps in Germany have such a deal with “lesser” clubs are readily found. Arsenal of London has a deal with Belgian Beveren and Manchester United has a deal of a similar kind with another Belgian club, Royal Antwerp (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/s/sheff_utd/5256792.stm). Clubs from the developed economies may have such deals with clubs from the developing countries. Sometimes this is due to the wish of having cheap labour. The well-known club of Ajax Amsterdam has launched a local variant in South Africa, the Ajax Cape Town, allowing the possibility for the greatest talents of the South African club to transfer into the respective Dutch club (World Soccer December 2006); http://www.ajaxct.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=77&Itemid=65). As this is a classic case of launching a new “production unit” in a country with significant price advantage in wages and infrastructure, the case of Sheffield United is different.
The English club Sheffield United has acquired a Chinese football club, Chengdu Five Bulls (http://www.sufc.premiumtv.co.uk/page/ChengduBladesIndex/0,,10418,00.html). As China is the major up-and-coming power in the world economy, this is also reflected in the growing consuming power of the Chinese and the growth of the Chinese market. As the Chinese football league is not very competitive in itself and China has hardly produced any major football players to date, the motivation of acquiring a Chinese club is hardly for reducing labour costs. Instead, it can be interpreted as a market oriented purchase. (Dicken 2007.)


Path study in players’ transfers: the winner takes it all

The usual career path of a football player is that he (or she) transfers from a minor employer (football club) to a major one and that the level of employer reflects the level of the player and the phase of his development. The relationship of minor-major indicates the differences in status and stature of the football clubs and the leagues these clubs participate in. Often – especially if the player is very talented – some stages of the career path may be skipped altogether.

The developing and developed countries are here understood in football terms, not in general terms of development.

Career paths of some individual players illustrate this. Didier Drogba came from Ivory Coast to France as a five-year-old boy, signing his first senior contract with a small French club Levallois, playing now in the fourth division of French league. From there he went two divisions up to Le Mans, and from there he went to a minor club of Guincamp at the highest level of French league. From there he was bought to Olympique Marseille, a major French club, and later on to a major English club, Chelsea. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/c/chelsea/3896465.stm
http://www.didierdrogba.com/en/biographie/index.asp

A Brazilian born later-to-be naturalised Portuguese player, Deco, signed his first professional contract in Brazil with Nacional Sao Paolo, later being bought by another Brazilian club, Corinthians. As Brazil is a country rich in football culture but economically a developing country, he went to Europe, to Alverca, playing at the second level of the Portuguese league. From there he went to a minor club at the highest level of the Portuguese league, Salgueiros. Only after two games he was bought by a major Portuguese club, Porto. From Porto he went further to Barcelona.
http://www.fcbarcelona.com/web/english/futbol/temporada_07-08/plantilla/jugadors/deco.html

Kim Källström is a Swedish player, who signed his first senior contract with a Gothenburg based club Häcken, playing at the second level of Swedish league. With Häcken he won promotion to the first level of Swedish league, and after his club relegated back to the second level of Swedish league, he was transferred to a major Swedish club, Djurgården. From there he went to the French club, Rennes, later on being transferred to Olympique Lyonnais, a major French club playing in the Champions League regularly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_K%C3%A4llstr%C3%B6m

Despite the flow of the player traffic being from developing to developed countries, there are exceptions of the rule. An Italian player, Daniele Massaro signed his first professional contract with Monza at the second level of Italian league. From there he went to a Serie A (the highest level of Italian league) club Fiorentina. From there he went further to Milan, an Italian giant. From Milan, he went to Japan, Shimizu S-Pulse.
http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showpost.php?p=4673807&postcount=80

Players often return to the club where they started their professional career. Juan Veron started at a Argentinian club of Estudiantes, later being transferred to an Argentinian giant, Boca Juniors. From there he went to Europe, playing in relatively big Italian clubs like Sampdoria, Parma and Lazio, and from there he went on to an English giant, Manchester United and from there, to Chelsea. From Chelsea he returned to Italy, to Inter Milan, and now he plays again for Estudiantes in Argentina. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Sebasti%C3%A1n_Ver%C3%B3n.)

Conclusion

Many models of transnational corporative behaviour are evident in professional football. The player market follows predominantly that of a transnational vertical integration, with the system of nursery or feeder clubs of different hierarchical levels.

The friction between multi- or cross-national capital can be interpreted as a clash between mainstream economic activities of TNCs and community economies. As the features of a locally attached supporter are those of place attachment, cultural distinction, social embeddedness and locally ownership, in turn, the features of a football corporation are aspatiality/globality, aculturalism, social disembeddedness and non-local ownership. (Dicken 2007.) The supporters who consider the club a representant of their local community, seem their values to be threatened and disconnected from the community and its values and culture by the multinational capital.

The management and corporative system of professional football is that of any transnational corporations when seeking competitiveness both domestically and internationally. Success in domestic competitions is a pre-requisite for clubs of entering the international competitions, and success in these international competitions escalates the means to succeed domestically. This leads to a vicious circle, into a winner-take-all economy.

Even for trans - or multinational football corporations, some resources (most notably the essence, the special identity, for example, Englishness, Londonness or East-Londonness) are essentially home based. Then, some resources – such as financing and players’ market and selling football merchandise – can be placed outside the traditional homestead of the club. These resources or assets are interdependent: the investing and sponsoring helps to afford attracting well-known players, who in turn help to sell the fan merchandise. (based on Bartlett&Ghoshal 1998.)

The offsourcing of players’ markets follows the global model of TNCs, especially when using feeder clubs. The use of feeder clubs means that the parent company has the final say in buying and selling players. Parent company strategies in football were presented in the Ajax case, where the parent company in Amsterdam is mainly responsible for corporate strategies and developing knowledge, transferring them to the sub company in Cape Town.

If the traditional picture of football clubs was that they represented local society, today they are also global corporations with local supporter organisations spread worldwide – mainly due to TV – and globally sold merchandise. The friction between those two notions of football is ever present and these two notions, functions or representations of a football club are concurrent.

REFERENCES:
BARTLETT, Christopher A., GHOSHAL, Sumantra 1998: Managing Across Borders. The Transnational Solution. Harvard Business School Press, Boston, Massachusetts. 2nd edition.
BENNETT, Norman 2001: Fotballleksikon. En gjennomgan av de footballhistoriene som skapte overskrifter helt fra 1863 og frem til i dag, sesong for sesong. Fotballforlaget.
BROWN, Adam (ed.) 1998: FANATICS! Power, identity and fandom in football. Routledge London and New York.
DICKEN, Peter 2007: Global shift. Mapping the changing contours of the world economy. Sage Publications, London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi.
FREEMAN, Simon 2000: Own Goal! How Egotism and Greed are Destroying Football. Orion
GIULIANOTTI, Richard, BONNEY, Norman, HEPWORTH, Mike (eds.) 1994: Football, Violence and Social Identity. Routledge London and New York.


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