Vox.com publishes an extensive research about what the role of migration is in the composition of national football squads. Gijsbert Oonk from Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication is among the three Dutch researchers who conducted research on migration in football. They collected data on the birthplaces of the parents and grandparents of each World Cup player from 1930 to 2018 as part of their research into migrant players. It’s worth mentioning that their findings are displayed by Vox.com in a vivid and interactive way.
137 foreign-born players
The 2022 Qatar World Cup has the highest share of foreign-born players in the event’s history: 137 of the 830 players from the 32 teams are representing countries other than their birthplaces. That’s already produced some poignant moments. Achraf Hakimi, who scored the winning penalty against Spain to send Morocco to the quarter-finals for the first time, was born in Madrid to Moroccan parents. In another example, Swiss forward Breel Embolo — who was born in Cameroon — scored a crucial goal in the team’s first match against his birth country. His goal paved the way for Switzerland to advance to the Round of 16. Cameroon, meanwhile, did not advance.
Top players have more choices than ever
This is the sixth consecutive tournament where the number of foreign-born players has grown, a sign not just that there’s natural ongoing migration in the world but also that national teams are increasingly looking for talents outside their physical borders, and that top players today have more choices than ever. Gijsbert Oonk’s research shows that the growing number of players representing countries their family are from is the main driver behind the increase of foreign-born players since 2002. Meanwhile, the share of players representing countries they naturally migrated to or were recruited to for soccer hasn’t changed much since then. To get a better sense of how players ended up representing countries other than their birthplaces, Vox analyzed the 137 foreign-born players at the 2022 World Cup.
- Researcher