Geographical Aspects of Football: Migration of Professional Football Players

Geographical Aspects of Football: Migration of Professional Football Players Ondfej Kolanda The aim of the thesis is to provide an integrated view on the international football migration, in particular within the European region. The first part therein summarizes some of the key writings on the subject matter. Furthermore, it provides and overview on the general and even some more particular theories concerning football migration and tries to sort out factors affecting migration in to basic categories. The second part aims to introduce the history of football migration patterns from the time of difusion from England to continental Europe till recent decades. The history introduction represents a fundamentalpart for further understanding of present migration flows. The main topic of pivotal exploratory chapter deals with the migration flows and their progress. At the centre thereof have been included series of analysis concerning migration flows, their changes in space and time during last two decades, anomalies and some important economical-geographic questions arising among the expert communities and from time to time even within the public's discussions. The whole analysis is based on a Transfermarkt portal database registering over 80,000 transfers since beginning of nineties. The particular..