Within Satisfaction and Distress: Characterizing the First Cultural Transition of Young Talented Cameroonian Footballers

Abstract

Introduction Migration is at the core of today’s professional sport. In football, since 2020, the rate of migrant players has increased by 20% (Poli et al., 2024). Transnational mobility has become a highly valuable commodity making transnational football career an inescapable pathway to either professional level or world-class level. Therefore, understanding cross-borders sports mobility processes is crucial for both players and stakeholders to effectively prepare and negotiate cultural transitions. Transnational career and pathway research in sport psychology is recent, limited, and suggests that maintaining a career as a migratory athlete remains challenging (Book et al., 2021; Ryba & et al., 2016; Storm et al., 2022). By identifying challenges faced, and psychological process involved, those researches highlight at what extent culture frames athletes’ sport and non-sport life experiences. However, no studies focused on neither the first cultural transition nor African athletes. From analysis of some previous studies, it seems that the experience of the first cultural transition shapes the willingness to initiate and the experience of the following migrations (Book et al., 2021; Ryba et al., 2016). On the other hand, African countries are deeply distinct from the most other countries worldwide regarding relevant features shaping people’s life experience: social security, gross domestic product, facilities, governance, and race. Furthermore, African countries are among those displaying the highest growth of expatriate footballers (Poli et al., 2024). Additionally, most of athletic migrations from Africa correspond to forced migration (United Nations Humans Rights Council, 2022), with the difference that it is triggered by a contract. Thus, what characterize the experience of the first cultural transition of African footballers? This study aimed to explore the athletic transnational career of Cameroonian footballers to characterize their experience of the first cultural transition.

Methods This study is grounded within Critical Realism philosophy. It is useful to engage causal analysis and explanation of social problems and suggest practical recommendations for social change (Fletcher, 2017). Fourteen Cameroonian former footballers were purposively sampled following three criteria: having spent at least the formative years in Cameroon, did the first cultural transition for athletic career development, and having played professionally for a football club abroad at least one season. The participants’ position in the pitch included all the main positions acknowledged in football (goalkeeper, defender, midfielder, and striker), and the country of their first cultural transition included the four continents (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Germany, France, Indonesia, Greece, Côte d’Ivoire, Paraguay, Italy, Switzerland, and Turkey). The semi-structured interviews based on life story and timeline interviews approaches were conducted, focusing on the participants’ experience of athletic transnational mobilities. This included a series of two interview sessions which lasted between 25 and 121 minutes. A total of 26 interviews were audio recorded, transcribed, and reflexively thematically analyzed (Braun & Clarke, 2021). The study applied the four rigorous criteria to ensure qualitative study trustworthiness: credibility, dependability, confirmability, and transferability (Lincoln & Guba, 1985).

Results Nine themes (with their sub-themes) and their relationship were identified: Mental Health Issues (MHI), Context of athletic migration and seven challenges related to: Club and Contract, Team, Pitch, Way of life, Geography, Home country, and High Level Athlete status. MHI emerged as output of the context and challenges. MHI were characterized by players’ psychological distress and inability to understand that condition, and inability of the club leading team to understand what they were going through. The context of athletic migration was characterized by unplanned transition, adolescence, club’s facilities, and perception of moving abroad as having succeed their football career and life (satisfaction of achieving the dream). Challenges characterized tough situations players went through like contract disruption (club and team), broken In-group (team), injury (pitch), new mentality (way of life), winter (geography), long-distance relationship (home country), and experience of professionalism (High Level Athlete status).

Discussion/Conclusion This research is the first to study the first cultural transition of athletes and to use a sample of athletes from Africa. The results depict main features characterizing the experience of the first athletic migration of young talented Cameroonian footballers. Applying critical realism philosophy, MHI was identified as the effect of the migration context and challenges faced. Those findings are consistent with the holistic developmental and ecological perspectives to talent development (Wylleman & Rosier, 2016), Intersectionality (Book et al., 2021), cultural sport psychology (Schinke & Hanrahan, 2009), and challenges underscored in previous transnational athletic career studies (Book et al., 2021; Ryba et al., 2016; Storm et al., 2022). Most importantly, this study highlights new result patterns enriching literature and providing critical information for African athletes and sport stakeholders: MHI (explicitly underscored), context of athletic migration, challenges related to winter, new mentality, broken In-group, etc. As successful talented footballers, they anticipated migration with professional contract as the guarantee of happiness. Actually, those young talented footballers navigated through the satisfaction of achieving professional level and distress. They struggled with psychological distress by shouldering the acculturation load and some professional football’s drifts in an environment which was not supportive enough, because it does not understand them. They could not seek for help because the lack means to understand their condition. Thus, this study is directly related to two Sustainable Development Goals (the third and eighth) by addressing mental health and decent work (United Nations Humans Rights Council, 2022). The results suggest several practical implications: informed football stakeholders’ action, strengthen coaches’ training, adjust sport psychologists’ intervention, and build solid preparatory foundation for next transnational African footballers.

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