Gold and passion. Intersections, overlaps and conflicts between the economic dimension and the sports dimension in the training process for footballers in Argentina and France

Abstract

Problem: influence of the economic dimension in the process of training footballers in professional clubs. Objective: to analyze the ways in which the economic dimension appears in the sports training received by young footballers from lower divisions, both from the club's and footballers' perspective. Method: based on a six-month ethnography carried out in the training divisions of two professional football clubs, Estudiantes de la Plata (Argentina) and Olympique de Marseille (France), a participant observation was carried out, to account for the practices and environment in each Training Center; Then, in-depth interviews were carried out with soccer players and trainers, to observe the representations that the actors make of their own practice. Results: through four elements: the form of contracts, the existence or not of wages, representations about money, and the role of managers or agents of soccer players, a comparative analysis was carried out that shows differences and similarities in Argentina and in France, which depend less on material structures than on senses and values ​​associated with sport, play and effort. Conclusions: it was observed that, although formative soccer does not constitute a professional practice, around it there is a market that largely reproduces the logic of professional soccer. This generates, among others, the autonomization of the careers of footballers with respect to their clubs from an early age, and a process of individualization of the relationship of the players with their profession. However, since the economy is a dimension that contradicts traditional sports values, money always appears as a subsidiary to sports glory in the discourse of soccer players in training and trainers.