The Factors of Foreign Professional Football Players that Move to Thai League

Introduction

Football is a global sport. Everybody in the world is playing football as one of the major sport in each country. But now football is not just a sport anymore it is more than that. A professional football player is now a real job in many countries and every professional football players have a high salary with not only the football club that they play for but also sponsorship if they were famous players. World’s most popular football leagues such as English Premier League (England), La Liga (Spain), Serie A (Italy), Ligue 1 (France) and Bundesliga (Germany) are full of talented football players and also talented personal such as advertisement team and the copyright team. Those leagues are examples of how world football business works. Since the 1970s many media, sponsorship, and advertisement have contributed to a football business and made it into a large business with any attention. Big clubs become employers of both players and management team and some team owned by shareholders.

The values of top 5 European football leagues broadcast. English premier league is leading as the most expensive league broadcast for 4, 280 USD. In the Academy of any team must have a scouting team to find the best young talents to sign to their academy and can develop to be a future professional football player for the team they represented. Many football academies create many good young talents and transfer them to big clubs for a high value of money. For example, Martin Odegaard, a 16 years Old Norwegian who made a debut for Norway national team when he was only 15 years old, was signed by Real Madrid for 3 million Euros to be a Real Madrid’s player. Odegaard former club Strømsgodset received a very high amount of money. From this case, many football academies try to make a very good development system for the youth team so they can either use them as a future star or transfer them to a bigger club.

In Thailand, a Professional Football player is now a job that gets paid with good salary. The “Thai League” is a name of the Thai professional football league under the “Asian Football Confederation”. Thailand has a quota for foreign players which called 3+1+1. 3+1+1 means that 1 club will have a limited for foreign players only 5 players. 3 of them can be any nationality, 1 of the must be an Asian player and 1 of them must be an ASEAN player (according to 2018 Thai league rules). The club can have less than 5 foreign players but needs to follow the rules. Thai league has 5 divisions including Thai league 1 (Top league), Thai league 2, Thai league 3, Thai league 4 and Thai league 5 (armature league). Thai league 1 has more than 50 foreign players which from many regions such as Europe, South America, North America, and Asia. Last 5 years Thai league 1 has used more than 1, 000 million bats in a transfer market system. The most recent case would be Dragan Boskovic who moved from Bangkok United to Thai Port Football Club for 2. 58 million baths. Migration is a major concept of a foreign worker. According to The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization(UNESCO there are 3 reasons of migration. Firstly, persons who are outside the state that not belong to their nationality. Secondly, persons who do not enjoy the general legal recognition of rights which is inherent in the granting by the host State of the status of refugee, naturalized person or of similar status; And lastly, persons who do not enjoy either general legal protection of their fundamental rights by virtue of diplomatic agreements, visas or other agreements.

Migration in terms of career opportunity, to leave to other country makes more career opportunity due to the inside reason or outside reason as well. Inside reason such as political problem or economic crisis. Outside season such as salaries or culture that attract people to move to other country. It would be reasonable that professional football players which is a high skills labor from around the world want to capture a share of “the economic wealth generated by professional football” which is different from each and can be considering migration to support their career opportunities.

From this, we will see that a football player is one of the labors which is a high skill labor that migrates worldwide. Many football players migrate from country to country often connect with their original country, for instance, sending back the money to their family, have a vacation and facilitating the migration of others. Foreign professional football players create many impacts to a football team because of the difference of physics and skills that can make the team reach to a goal easier.

Singha Chiang Rai United is one of the biggest Thai professional football team. Founded in 2009 Chiang Rai is the team that played in a top league (Thai league 1) for more than 8 years. The club has won many trophy including Thai FA cup 2017 and League cup 2017. In 2016, Singha Chiang Rai United broke the record of a club that has the most expensive Thai player which is Tanaboon Kesarat for more than 50 million baths. In this season (2018), Singha Chiang Rai United is the only team that located in the northern region of Thailand in Thai League 1. In the past, Singha Chiang Rai United has many Thai national team players such as Isawa Singthong, Anon Sangsranoi, Tanaboon Kesarat, and Thitiphan Poung-Chan. Singha Chiang Rai United has 5 foreign players (second leg of the 2018 season) with 3 Brazilian 1 Korean and 1 Myanmarese.

Concept of Migration

The concept of migration according to The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has defined 3 reasons for migration including

1. Persons who are outside the state which are not their own nationality or citizenship.
2. Persons who do not enjoy the general legal recognition of rights which is inherent in the granting by the host State of the status of refugee, naturalized person or of similar status;
3. Persons who do not enjoy either general legal protection of their fundamental rights by virtue of diplomatic agreements, visas or other agreements.

As mentioned in Migration and Cities: The Context, the arrival of migrants can increase a transformative effect in terms of cultural, political and economic which can contribute to the overall development of localities. In Western European countries, foreign born labors comprise 10-15 percent of labor forces. Some labors in Europe, many have migrated due to the low-cost and flexible salaries that company can afford but on the other side, some labors could also remain as an irregular situation because of the low-cost, flexible salaries they represent for companies.

Push and Pull factor of migration

As mentioned on Push and Pull Factors of Migration: A Case Study of Brick Kiln Migrant Workers in Punjab (2010) First of All, Push and Pull factors are theories that motivate people to leave their home country. The theories have its own factors that drive people to migrate to another country it can be an internal factor or an external factor. The difference is that “push” means a reason that drives people to leave their country because of a negative reason but “pulls” means a reason that attracts people who leave their country by a positive reason.

Economic factors The first reason is an economic factor. People who migrate from country to country with this factor is the people with low income, unemployment, and underemployment. Which are considered basic factors driving the migrants to the place that give them a career or better job opportunity. Most of the studies show that this reason did motivate many migrants from developing countries to developed countries. For example, they affected by an agriculture problem which made them migrate to other countries. The difference is that Push factor operates mostly with the rural-urban migration, but Pull factor is with the rural-urban and a type of domestic as well as international migration.

The difference of region and the higher rural make labors immigrate to a number of countries such as Canada or USA. Another reason is marriage. For example many females from Thailand migrates to USA or Canada due to the marriage. Socio-Cultural Factors The conflict in a family can make a migration. Sometimes media creates a value of many cultures and promote people to visit can be promoted as a migration as well.

The problem inside is a big problem. Conflict and war make many people leave their country. An attitude, political background, and viewpoint can support a migration as well.

There is not much research has been done on talent migration in Thailand. The research that works directly on football migration was The Contours, Dynamics, and Impacts of African Football Migration to South Africa edited by Eirik Futsaeter Solberg (2008). The research shows that how football inspires African people to migrate as a professional football player. Eirik (2008) argue that a football player creates a development in the football system. He refers to a “muscle drain” of talented athletes to develop the football system. He also refers to the movement of a football player as a player to show that how sports business works in the capitalist economy. The movement of African players in his research has shown that many reasons have motivated them to move to a club in Europe but mostly will be 2 factors which including push and pull factors. According to Eirik Futsaeter (2008), football migration flows on the more powerful leagues. These leagues such as English Premier League, La Liga Spain attract many players of a standard that matching with their skill to the salaries. This change has made it more visible and evident. He also mentions that in the late twentieth century global sports has become the more powerful business.

Social Adaptation

According to Social Adaptation When Software Gives Users a Voice (2012), Social adaptation is an adaptation what responds to the social collective judgment on social behavior. Social adaptation is significant when the social change affects important aspects of life in a short period of time. Migration is one of social adaptation. It changes people lifestyle with different culture or society. In a society, people may find that he unable to be fitted with a life of social change with different social and norms so some use a very long time to adapt to a society they had moved to. In the socialist society, social adaptation requires a concentrated action and study. The social adaptation makes people understand the values and norms of the others in a situation that with the perspective of that society.