Presence of foreign footballers and its impact on attitudes to immigration 

Globalisation has affected Western societies drastically in recent decades. The increase in cross-border flows of goods, services, money, people, information and culture is a process that affects citizens in all ways. These transformations can also be observed in mass consumer culture and leisure. Within the latter, sport, and football in particular, is one of its expressions that arouses most interest globally. The study on which this article is based analyses how the presence of foreign players in European leagues might influence the behaviours and opinions of fans of football clubs with regard to immigration. 

1.-Football is the sport that attracts most attention, the widest following and the strongest emotional involvement on an international scale. In Spain, according to a survey conducted by the Centre for Sociological Research in 2014, nearly 70% of respondents stated that they were fans or supporters of a football club. 

2.- The presence of foreign footballers in European national leagues has increased substantially over the last three decades. The aim of the study on which this article is based is to clarify the relationship between the participation of immigrants in football and the attitudes, behaviours and opinions held by citizens who are football fans with regard to immigration. 

3.- The results of the study suggest that, within the population that supports a given football club, attitudes to the phenomenon of migration improve when foreign players contribute to the achievements of the club to which they belong. 

Relationship between attitudes to immigration (measured on a scale from 0 to 10) and number of minutes played by foreigners in teams that won La Liga (left) and in those teams that reached a higher position than expected in budget terms (right) in the eight seasons analysed (from the 2001-2002 season to the 2015-2016 season). 

According to a survey conducted in 2017 by Nielsen Sports, 43% of respondents in 30 countries in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Asia were interested or very interested in football. In Spain, a survey carried out by the Centre for Sociological Research (Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas, CIS) in 2014 showed that 67.4% of respondents (77.9% of men and 57.5% of women) were fans or supporters of a football club. In the daily life of a large part of the population, football is a phenomenon that undoubtedly generates one of the highest levels of attention, following and emotional involvement among its fans. This global interest in football makes it an excellent field of analysis for understanding complex phenomena of a social nature such as immigration, the growth of which in recent decades is a direct consequence of globalisation, which has also had a profound effect on football. 

In this sport, globalisation has manifested itself through the free circulation of professionals, which has increased substantially over the last 25 years. The football market is increasingly exposed to players being transferred across countries and continents. Typically, in this field, the flow of players occurs from south to north. The main reason for the increase in so-called “football migrations” is the fact that restrictions on the number of foreign players in European leagues have been removed or relaxed, and clubs have developed a much more entrepreneurial mindset. 

According to the CIES Football Observatory, the percentage of foreign players in the 31 main European leagues reached a record of 41.5% in 2018. Ten years earlier the figure stood at 34.7%. The percentage of home-grown players trained in the club has at the same time dropped notably: in 2009 it was 23.2%, whereas in 2019 it stood at 17.2%. 

In the case of Spain, foreign players accounted for 38.1% of the total on average in the years 2009-2018, with an increasing trend over the decade. In contrast, the average percentage of home-grown players over the decade was 23%, showing a strong decreasing trend. Thus, in the 2018-2019 season, only 17.8% of players in La Liga were trained in the club where they played. 

In view of the fact that football generates such an intense following and involvement in countries such as Spain, and that the number of foreign players has risen steadily, the question could be raised as to whether this sport might alter citizens’ attitudes, behaviours and opinions regarding immigration. 

Some studies seem to suggest that this impact is possible. For example, a recent study by Alrababa’h et al. (2019) analyses how the presence of Muslim star player Mohamed Salah at Liverpool FC has influenced Islamophobic attitudes and behaviours in the county of Merseyside (where the team is located). The results showed that hate crimes against immigrants have declined by 18.9% since the arrival of Salah in the team, whereas there was no similar effect for other types of crimes, as can be seen in graph 2. Likewise, anti-Muslim tweets by Liverpool fans fell by half (from 7.3% to 3.8%) in comparison with other English Premier League clubs. In other words, the results of the study point to a more positive perception of the effects of immigration. 

This effect could be explained by the fact that foreign players offer a positive model of immigration, whereby the foreign player contributes to the achievements of the team with which the population of a city, region or country (the latter in the case of national teams, which sometimes also include players born abroad) identify. If this were true, this improvement in attitudes to immigration by part of the population could depend on the success or failure of the team (the better the performance, the better the attitude) and the relative contribution of the foreign players concerned. In this way, an improvement in these attitudes would be detected in proportion with players’ contribution, although in any event the improvement would only be observed in the team’s home community. 

In order to test these hypotheses, a research project was carried out combining the attitudes to immigration expressed by Spanish citizens in the European Social Survey, conducted every two years, with the performance of the various football teams that played in La Liga in the period 2002-2016. Performance was assessed by taking into consideration not only the outcome of the championship (which team won) but also the comparison between the position each team actually reached and the position it could have been expected to reach in terms of its budget. 

The results show that attitudes to immigration improve when foreign players contribute to the successes of their football team. This improvement is only found in the team’s home community, not in others. Thus, in the study carried out, opinions on the benefits of immigration improved notably in the region of the team that won La Liga. For example, Valencia CF won its last two leagues in the 2001-2002 and 2003-2004 seasons, with the participation of twelve foreign players in the first league championship and nine in the second. Correspondingly, the perception of the role of immigrants in society expressed by the inhabitants of the Valencian Community in 2002 and 2004 was significantly more positive than the perception they had in later years, when the team’s performance was not so positive. 

This effect is more visible the more important the role of foreign players in the team’s victories and performance. The appraisal of immigration tended to be more favourable the more foreign players the champion side had, and the more minutes they played. Graph 3 shows this trend in two ways: when the teams won La Liga (left) and when clubs finished the season in a higher position than could be expected from their budget (right). 

The results presented suggest that football unintentionally modulates the opinion of part of the population with regard to immigration. When a supporter’s team wins, immigration is perceived positively, especially if foreign players are essential for the club’s success. 

In this context, foreigners cease to be portrayed as a “threat” in economic, social or safety terms; on the contrary, the emphasis shifts to the positive effects of immigration for the economy and the creation of a more open and cosmopolitan society. 

Furthermore, the results show that a mass phenomenon such as football, in which the majority of people are emotionally involved, has great potential as an example for society, and this should be harnessed to teach values such as tolerance and the acceptance of the diversity that is increasingly evident in a globalised world. 

ALRABABA'H, A., W. MARBLE, S. MOUSA and A. SIEGEL (2019): «Can exposure to celebrities reduce prejudice? The effect of Mohamed Salah on Islamophobic behaviors and attitudes», SocArXiv Papers, 31, DOI: 10.31235/osf-io/eq8ca. 

LAGO, I. and C. LAGO-PEÑAS (2020): «The glories of immigration: How soccer wins shape opinion on immigration», Migration Studies, 2(3), DOI: 10.1093/migration/mnaa018.