ABSTRACT
This chapter is based on surveys of the club affiliation of players among the leading FIFA listed national teams (N: 1,046). The sample covers the players most likely to migrate to a club abroad, while the phenomenon of women’s football migration also involves younger talents and senior players outside the national squads. After nalysing the selected sample, basic trends and patterns in football migration are listed: 1. geographic and cultural proximity, 2. fluxes from East to West, 3. fluxes from South to North, and 4. Internal migration in the southern hemisphere. Given the sparse economy and limited career options in women’s soccer, the central fluxes appear as migration into the US professional league and colleges along with migration to top leagues in Northern Europe. Furthermore, the chapter discusses the ways in which national sporting governing bodies may take advantage of and/or be challenged by the transnational frame of sports by supporting young players’ educational migration and outsourcing their player development to top leagues.
