The Migration of Irish-born Players to Undertake US Soccer Scholarships, 1969-2000

ABSTRACT This article examines the migration of Irish-born soccer players to the United States of America to take up soccer scholarships in the late twentieth century. It will show that while Irish athletes had been moving to the universities there to undertake athletic scholarships since the late 1940s, it was not until the late 1960s that soccer players began to be recruited. Irish-American cultural connections often facilitated players’ movement, which has generally been motivated by the lack of opportunities to combine soccer training and education within the Irish higher education system, and the low chances of developing a full-time professional career in soccer in Britain or Ireland. It discusses a number of these players’ soccer careers prior to migration and, in combining oral testimony with newspaper reports, assesses the reasons why they decided to do so. It highlights that while courses were in place in Dublin to facilitate US soccer scholarship entry by the 1990s, players also continued to be recruited informally and some contacted other players and utilised networks in the USA to gain the attention of US coaches.