‘The Recruitment, Educational and Playing Experiences of Remigrated Male Irish-born U.S. Soccer Scholarship Awardees, 1969-2000: a Case Study’

Abstract

In 1969 Greg McElroy became the first Irish-born player to be recruited by an American university to undertake a soccer scholarship when he migrated to the University of South Florida. This is the first academic study of the recruitment, scholarship and post-scholarship experiences of a selection of players who returned to Ireland having undertaken soccer scholarships in the United States of America in the late twentieth century. This thesis takes a case study approach to investigate how a number of these players were recruited, their playing and educational experiences of the soccer scholarships, and the extent to which their scholarships facilitated their employment in professional football and in work related to their degrees after leaving university. It utilises documentary evidence through the use of newspaper data along with oral testimony from ten players. The findings indicate that players’ recruitment remained largely unstructured despite the presence of US-scholarship related courses in Dublin in the 1990s. Players were motivated by the lack of opportunities in professional soccer in Ireland and the prospect of combining football training with a university degree. Academic entry was relatively easy and most players’ experiences of the scholarship were positive. However it remained difficult to break into full-time professional soccer and a number of players became more interested in gaining financial security through other work having returned home. A number of similarities with the recruitment of international athletes on scholarships were identified. These included the informal nature of recruitment, basic academic entry requirements and the initial intensity of the training and academic schedules. A comparison with professional footballers in a number of codes highlighted the lack of emphasis on academic performance at professional clubs in contrast to regular mandatory levels of attainment required by those on scholarships. The case study highlighted that undertaking a US soccer scholarship did not lead to a full-time professional career in soccer for the ten interviewees. It also illustrated that US degrees were beneficial in securing work in some sectors such as finance but those who undertook teaching degrees struggled to gain recognition of their qualifications on returning to Ireland and seeking work there. This raises issues about the need for greater clarification in regard to what can be obtained after completing a US soccer scholarship.