phénomène de don en retour

345 Pages·2017·3.66 MB·English

by  Ernest Yeboah Acheampong

Analyse socioéconomique du “phénomène de don en
retour”: les footballeurs africains en Europe et l’aide à
leurs communautés d’origine
Ernest Yeboah Acheampong
To cite this version:
Ernest Yeboah Acheampong. Analyse socioéconomique du “phénomène de don en retour”: les foot-
balleursafricainsenEuropeetl’aideàleurscommunautésd’origine. Economiesetfinances. Université
Grenoble Alpes, 2017. Français. ￿NNT: 2017GREAS016￿. ￿tel-01692554￿
HAL Id: tel-01692554
https://theses.hal.science/tel-01692554
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THÈSE
Pour obtenir le grade de
DOCTEUR DE LA COMMUNAUTÉ UNIVERSITÉ
GRENOBLE ALPES
Spécialité: CIA-Ingénierie de la Cognition, de l'interaction, de
l'Apprentissage et de la création.
Arrêté ministériel: 25 Mai 2016
Présentée par
Ernest Yeboah ACHEAMPONG
Thèse dirigée par Michel RASPAUD (EDISCE), UJF, et codirigée par
Malek BOUHAOUALA
préparée au sein du Laboratoire Sport et Environnement Social dans
l'École Doctorale Ingénierie pour la Santé, la Cognition et
l'Environnement.
Analyse socioéconomique du «phénomène de
don en retour»: Les footballeurs africains en
Europe et l’aide à leurs communautés
d’origine.
Thèse soutenue publiquement le 2 Juin 2017,
devant le jury composé de:
Monsieur Claude SOBRY, Président de jury
Professeur des universités, Université Lille 2, Rapporteur
Monsieur Pierre LANFRANCHI
Professeur des universités, De Montfort University, Rapporteur Monsieur
Michel RASPAUD (EDISCE)
Professor, Université Grenoble Alpes/UFR APS-SENS, Directeur de thèse
Monsieur Malek BOUHAOUALA
Maître de conférences, Université Grenoble Alpes/ UFRAPS-SENS, Co-
Directeur de thèse
Monsieur James ESSON
Professeur assistant, Loughborough University, Examinateur
Monsieur Stanislas FRENKIEL
Maître de conférences, Université d'Artois, Examinateur
UNIVERSITÉ GRENOBLE ALPES
THESIS
For obtaining the grade of
DOCTORATE OF THE COMMUNITY UNIVERSITY
GRENOBLE ALPES
Speciality: CIA. Ingénierie de la Cognition, de l'interaction, de
l'Apprentissage et de la création.
Ministerial order: 25th May 2016
Presented by
Ernest Yeboah ACHEAMPONG
Thesis directed by Michel RASPAUD and co-director Malek
BOUHAOUALA
Prepared within the Laboratory of Sport and Social
Environment in the Doctoral School of Engineering for Health,
Cognition and Environment.
Socioeconomic analysis of ‘Give Back
Phenomenon’: African footballers in Europe
and their assistance to the communities of
origin.
Thesis defended publicly on 2nd June 2017,
before the jury composed of:
Monsieur Claude SOBRY, President of the jury
Professeur des universités, Université Lille 2, Evaluator
Monsieur Pierre LANFRANCHI
Professeur des universités, De Montfort University, Evaluator
Monsieur Michel RASPAUD (EDISCE)
Professor, Université Grenoble Alpes/UFR APS-SENS, Thesis Director
Monsieur Malek BOUHAOUALA
Maître de conférences, Université Grenoble Alpes/ UFRAPS-SENS, Co-
Thesis Director
Monsieur James ESSON
Professeur assistant, Loughborough University, Examiner
Monsieur Stanislas FRENKIEL
Maître de conférences, Université d'Artois, Examiner
Acknowledgements
It has been a long journey for my continuous studies through to the completion of a PhD degree. Thanks
to the Almighty God who has guided and protected me throughout my academic career up to this level.
My educational journey started from Ghana particularly from the city of Kumasi and with determination,
and hard work has gotten me this far not forgotten the supports of significant others along my path.
Finally, obtaining a PhD in France, one of the world’s developed countries, developed in all
aspects- socially, culturally and most importantly scientifically. The journey has been a great challenge.
However, the journey would not have been possible without adequate support, encouragement and
motivation from my family members, especially my parents and siblings and others. So, at first, I take the
opportunity to thank and express my gratitude to them.
I feel blessed that I got the opportunity to work with Prof. Michel RASPAUD (Université
Grenoble Alpes/UFR APS-SENS Laboratory) and Dr Malek BOUHAOUALA (Université Grenoble
Alpes/UFR APS-SENS Laboratory) under their supervision. I have no word to express my gratitude for
all kinds of assistances rendered to me that nothing can repay them. Without their consistent scientific and
moral supports, encouragements and motivations I would not have been able to finish my PhD. I
especially thank them for their innovative and unique ideas and directions, and many discussions in
solving different issues during the thesis project leading to producing a fantastic and unique piece of
work.
This research was supported with the help from the Institut Français at the French Embassy,
Ghana for the training scholarship offered for 18months at the Université Grenoble Alpes, France. I wish
to thank Arnaud DORNON, now the Head of Coopération at the French Embassy in Nigeria for his
encouragement and motivation. Special thank goes to the Osei-Tutu’s family (Swiss), Marcel
DESAILLY, ABEDI Pele, Anthony BAFFOE and other African professional footballers for their
contributions to the subject.
I also express my sincere thanks to all other members of the Campusfrance both in Ghana and
France for their administrative support during my stay in Grenoble for the entire period of my studies.
I would like to extend my greatest respect and gratitude to the Jury members for accepting the
invitation to be present during the defense and evaluate the work. I am grateful to the referees: M. Pierre
LANFRANCHI (ICSHC) and M. Claude SOBRY (FSSEP) for their careful reading, valuable comments
and evaluation of the thesis. I have the honour to get M. James ESSON (Department of Geography,
Loughborough) and Stanislas FRENKIEL (Université d'Artois) as examiners of the thesis.
In this special moment, I would like to take the opportunity to thank and express my warmest
gratitude to members of the SENS-Laboratory group for their cooperation and social integration that
provided me with an enabling environment during the last three years.
I would also like to thank the UF RAPS, SENS-Laboratory especially, the people in the
administrative service for their voluntary assistance.
It would be disgraceful if I do not mention about the hospitality and affection that Prof. Michel
RASPAUD and Dr Malek BOUHAOUALA and their family members delivered upon my arrival in
France. I sincerely appreciate and thankful for that, especially the delicious Algerian meals and
mountaineering walking. Special appreciation goes to my backbone Yvonne Yaa, Ellis Akwaa-Sekyi,
Fauna, Aikins, Chessman, and Joshua for their constant encouragement and support.
During these three years, I came across many people but few of them made my stay really
memorable in some or other ways. I would like to thank them.
I want to thank my parents, Peter Yeboah Acheampong and Christiana Akwamu, my sisters
Rosemond, Harriet, Vivian, Mavis, Joycelyn and my brother Prince. I am incredibly grateful for your
support, my studies and professional career-I would not have been where I am today without you.
I also apologise if I forgot to mention any person who helped me during the course of my work.

Finally, I beg pardon for anything that may have inconvenient anybody during the last three years.

Dated, 2nd June 2017.
Ernest Yeboah ACHEAMPONG
My favourite quote

“To live is to choose.
But to choose well,
You must know who you are
And what you stand for,
Where you want to go and
Why you want to get there”

Kofi Annan (born in 1938)
(Former UN Secretary General), Nobel Peace Prize in 2001;
Confucius Peace Prize award in 2012.
Summary
GENERAL INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................... 1
i) Background ................................................................................................................................. 1
ii) The Give Back Phenomenon (GBP) ............................................................................................. 4
iii) Objectives ................................................................................................................................ 6
iv) Research questions ................................................................................................................... 7
v) Organisation of the thesis manuscript ........................................................................................... 8
CHAPTER 1: GENERAL CONTEXT .................................................................................................................. 10
1.1 THE EUROPEAN FOOBALL IS A SPECIFIC LABOUR MARKET: Incentives and Dynamics
.............................................................................................................................................. 12
1.2 SITUATION AND EVOLUTION OF AFRICAN FOOTBALL ............................................. 18
1.3 GENERAL VIEWS ON THE CONCEPT OF MIGRATION .................................................. 23
1.4 AFRICAN MIGRATION: Description and Analysis .............................................................. 26
1.4.1 Transnationalism: General views and definitions ............................................................ 35
1.4.2 Mobility and the new market of football in Europe ......................................................... 43
1.5 DEFINITIONS OF FOOTBALLERS MIGRATION .............................................................. 46
1.6 MIGRATION OF AFRICAN FOOTBALL PLAYERS TO EUROPE .................................... 48
1.7 AFRICAN FOOTBALLERS WAGES IN EUROPEAN LEAGUES ...................................... 49
1.8 TYPOLOGIES OF FOOTBALL MIGRANTS ....................................................................... 52
CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL MODEL .............................................................................................................. 59
2.1 A BRIEF ANALYSIS OF ECONOMIC SOCIOLOGY ............................................................... 59
2.1.1 CONCEPT OF SOCIAL RATIONALITY IN ECONOMIC SOCIOLOGY ........................... 61
2.2 CONTRIBUTIONS OF THEORETICAL MODELS.................................................................... 62
2.2.1 APPLICATION OF ECONOMIC SOCIOLOGY .................................................................. 63
2.2.2 ECONOMIC BEHAVIOUR AS A SOCIAL ACTION .......................................................... 64
2.3 EXPLANATION OF THE THEORETICAL MODELS ............................................................... 70
2.3.1 ECONOMIC APPROACH: Human capital theory ................................................................ 70
2.3.2 SOCIOLOGICAL APPROACH: Social embeddedness theory .............................................. 78
2.3.3 CULTURAL APPROACH: Cultural embeddedness .............................................................. 81
2.3.4 SOCIO-ECONOMIC APPROACH: Institutionalised networks in social context ................... 85
2.4 MAX WEBER’S THEORY AND ITS APPROACH IN TERMS OF METHODOLOGY............. 95
2.5 MODEL OF ANALYSIS OF THE GIVE BACK PHENOMENON ........................................... 102
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .................................................................................................. 106
3.1 SOURCES AND METHODS .............................................................................................. 106
3.2 STATISTICS: Descriptive analysis ...................................................................................... 108
3.3 ANALYSIS GRID ............................................................................................................... 110
3.4 INTERVIEWS ..................................................................................................................... 113
3.5 ORGANISATION OF AFRICAN COUNTRIES WITH ECONOMIC AND TRADING
UNIONS ......................................................................................................................................... 119
3.6 MERITS AND DEMERITS OF THE METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES .......................... 119
3.6 SOCIAL BACKGROUND OF AFRICAN FOOTBALLERS INTERVIEWED .................... 121
CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS ................................................................................................. 131
4.1 MIGRATION DYNAMICS FROM AFRICA TO EUROPE.......................................................................... 131
4.1.2 AFRICAN PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALLERS BEGINNING LEAGUES ABROAD ........ 134
4.1.3 AFRICAN PROFESSIONAL PLAYERS MOBILITY PROCESS IN EUROPE .................. 137
4.1.4 NEW MARKET OF FOOTBALL IN EUROPE- An incentive for mobility project of Africa
footballers abroad ........................................................................................................................ 140
4.2 PERIODIZATION OF AFRICAN FOOTBALL EVOLUTION ................................................. 158
4.2.1 The controversial vision of football (the 1980s): Football vs. School ................................... 158
4.2.2 The shared vision of football (the 1990s): Gradual shift from social activity to a professional
opportunity .................................................................................................................................. 164
4.2.3 Football professionalism became an opportunity (the 2000s) ............................................... 171
4.3 The Role of Academies and European football structures towards the youths in Africa ............... 175
4.4 AFRICAN PROFESSIONAL PLAYERS ITINERARIESTO EUROPE ..................................... 178
4.4.1 A model of African footballers’ migratory itineraries .......................................................... 188
4.4.2 Typologies of African footballers’ migratory itineraries....................................................... 191
4.5 GIVE BACK PHENOMENON: The usage of African players’ football-related revenues ........... 197
4.5.1 THE ROLE OF EDUCATION IN AFRICAN COMMUNITY ............................................ 198
4.5.2 GBP’ AND THE NORMS AND SHARED VALUES ......................................................... 204
4.5.3 ‘GPB’ AND SOCIAL EMBEDDEDNESS .......................................................................... 217
4.5.4 ‘GBP’ AND THE INSTITUTIONALISED NETWORK ..................................................... 236
4.5.5 ‘GBP’ AND THE ECONOMIC INTENTION OF INVESTING THEIR FOOTBALL-
RELATED RESOURCES IN AFRICA........................................................................................ 247
CHAPTER 5: TYPOLOGIES OF THE ‘GIVE BACK PHENOMENON’ ........................................................... 255
5.1 FOOTBALL PLAYERS AND THEIR FAMILY PATTERN IN AFRICA ................................. 255
5.1.2 ORGANISATION OF AFRICAN PLAYERS’ FAMILY SETTING ................................... 261
5.1.3 OVERVIEW OF MARRIAGE IN AFRICA CONTEXT ..................................................... 262
5.2 TYPOLOGIES OF AFRICAN PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALLERS ‘GIVE BACK
PHENOMENON’ ............................................................................................................................ 267
5.2.1 SOME NOTICEABLE REVELATIONS ............................................................................ 277
GENERAL CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................... 279
Limitations ......................................................................................................................................................... 287
Perspectives ....................................................................................................................................................... 289
Recommendations .............................................................................................................................................. 290
Bibliography ...................................................................................................................................................... 291
APPENDICES ................................................................................................................................................... 329
Tables, figures, charts and Maps

Table 1. Displays of first 20 richest international footballers’ wages for 2015 in perspective 15
Table 2. Analysis grid designed and developed for the interviews 111
Table 3. Total number of African professional footballers interviewed 117
Table 4. Classification of the interviewees with their countries of origin in Africa 117
Table 5: Mobility trends of African players’ in the European leagues as at 2012/13 137
Table 6: CAF zones analysis of African players in the 30 UEFA professional leagues 148
Table 7: Summary of African migrant players and their beginning professional leagues overseas 149
Table 8: Table of comparison 276

Figure 1: Development of the contributions of theoretical models 94
Figure 2: Schema of Weber ideal type’s methodologies 100
Figure 3: Model of analysis of the ‘Give Back Phenomenon’ 105
Figure 4: The process of African footballers’ migratory itineraries 191
Figure 5: Enhanced interactive model of African footballers’ migratory itineraries 195
Figure 6: Comprehensive interactive progression of African talents migratory itineraries 197
Figure 7: The model of African players’ extended family structure and their contributions 260
Figure 8: African professional players’ family pattern in the communities 262
Figure 9: Typologies of African professional footballers ‘Give Back Phenomenon’ 277

Chart 1. Beginning leagues of African professional footballers overseas 134
Chart 2. CAF zoning analysis on African players’ mobility in the 13 UEFA countries 139
Chart 3. A total number of African professional footballers from each donor countries as at 2012/13 season 146
Chart 4. Continental representation of foreign-based players with reference to the research 147
Chart 5a. African professional players beginning leagues overseas in the late 1980s 151
Chart 5b. The age range of African players professional overseas from the 1990s to2000s 154

Map 1: Map1: A total number of African professional footballers in Europe with their respective countries 155
Map 2: Map 2: Destinations of African professional players in the 30 leagues of 13 UEFA countries 157
African boys enjoying what they like doing best with the ball