Professional Interests, Organizational Goals and the Mobility of Football Players in Europe

The mobility of professionals has important repercussions for organizational performance and the objective and subjective career success of the professionals involved. Within professional football, team quality is directly affected by the movements of players to and from the club. Transfers have a big impact on player careers as well, as footballers changing clubs increase their income or revitalize their career with a renewed chance on first team football. Whereas previous research examines these movements from the perspective of individual players, this study analyzes to what extent player transfers are shaped by the interaction between institutionally embedded organizational goals and the interests of footballers.

Using event history analysis to estimate the probability that a player moves to a different team, I argue that player transfers are a function of the location of an organization in the field and the position of a footballer in his team. In general, fringe players are more likely to move. This is especially so for high status teams, where such players move to pursue their interest of first team football. Moreover, players of underachieving high status teams are bound to be transferred, as the club lets go of the players it blames for its relatively low performance

This contrasts with the transfer probabilities of players in low status teams. The key players of these teams have a higher probability to move, as they are looking to increase their career rewards by moving to a higher placed team. Moreover, key players in overachieving low status teams are particularly likely to be transferred, as such teams sell their best players to cash in on their hard earned success.

In sum, this study highlights how professional labor mobility is shaped by the interaction between the institutionally defined interests of professionals and the goals of the organizations they work for.