Soccer players as sports workers: approaching retirement and social security rights from economic sociology

Abstract

It is a project that seeks to investigate the post-retirement expectations of a small sample of soccer players from a club in the interior of São Paulo. The inspiration for this research came with the empirical observation that, despite the cultural importance of football as a national sport and significant economic values moved by this market, there is the impossibility of formal retirement of the professional soccer athlete under the terms of the Consolidation of Labor Laws (CLT). Faced with this context, the questions that motivate this study arise: Where does the athlete end up pursuing a career in order to guarantee security and financial stability? What are your survival strategies at the end of your active life, which in football ends early, at the age of 35? To answer these questions we will carry out a field survey with the players of the Associação Ferroviária de Esportes de Araraquara, giving attention to the speeches and speeches of players who are active in their future post-career football. To complement the data, we shall also talk to players who have retired; finally, we will be attentive to the text of the Lei Prl´r and its normative implications.