African footballers' wives

Those paid dollars and pounds, their head is not five

Bibliographic Data

ID2378634
AuthorsChuka Onwumechili (0000-0001-9996-6101, Howard University, corresponding author), Unwana Akpan (Howard University), Unwana Samuel Akpan (0000-0001-6378-8091, Howard University)
Year2021
Volume56
Issue5
Pages641-657
Publication date2021-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Review for the Sociology of Sport (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1012-6902 • E-ISSN: 1461-7218
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1012690220958050
OpenAlexW3090431691
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited32

Marrying a footballer may be perceived as exotic, going by the popularity of footballers, but as some studies note, coping with lives of footballers who migrate frequently is challenging. Life as the wife of an itinerant footballer involves frequent relocations. But most of these studies rarely gain insights from wives; instead, they rely on secondary sources such as their husbands for insights on the wives' and families' lives. Nevertheless, the views of these women are important and contribute to a better understanding of their lives and those of their family. This study reports interviews of 17 wives of migrant footballers in Nigeria. The interview participants acknowledge stress in their life but they also tell stories of how they continue to cope with such stress using various modes of interaction with their environment. The socio-cultural environment has its impact on the type of coping strategies that the women choose to use. While the wives increasingly find coping strategies for the footballers' absences, they also move towards loathing their husband's work and career

Football · Political science · Popularity · Sociology · Wife · Clinical Psychology · Gender Diversity and Inequality · Gender Studies · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Psychology · Social Psychology · Work-Family Balance Challenges

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