This paper addresses the issue of migratory mobilities in football, dwelling specifically on Guinea-Bissauan footballers’ migration to Portugal. In this respect, it tackles two concerns: Firstly, despite its increasingly significant prominence in international football, the sporting migration processes of footballers from Guinea-Bissau have remained strangely absent from analyses of West African sports migration. Secondly, to combine the logic of mobility in the transnational field of sport with the subjectivities and aspirations of sporting immigrants, and how these young people navigate the fine line between mobility and immobility. In most cases, football winds up being a vehicle for uncertain and risky trajectories. Subsequently, we highlight three categories of immobility that affect these players and the respective strategies to counteract them: stalled sporting careers, remigration, and subalternization.

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sporting migrations,globalization of sports,football,mobilities,aspirations