Professional Football Players, 1991

During a short period the primary investigator was interested in sports research. In the primary investigator's opinion this is an interesting field of research which - as far as the social scientific parts of sports research are concerned - has only been cultivated to a limited degree. In order to utilize his interest in a concrete contribution the primary investigator initiated a research project in the autumn of 1990 on the social aspects of the career as a professional football player abroad. In 1987 a little less than 300 Danish football players played or had played as professionals in other countries. 290 of these were alive at the time of the investigation (the beginning of 1991). # The intention was to obtain information on the football career as well as the social and occupational careers of these football players. The primary investigator found it interesting to examine whether the career as a professional football player abroad had had any - positive or negative - 'social consequences'