To date, studies of sports labour migration have afforded little attention to analysis of how individual athletes relate to historical and macro- structural power relations and forces. In this article, we set out to develop a transnational perspective on sports labour migration, focusing particularly on migrants’ achievement and maintenance of mobility as a key constituting factor in migratory movements. We argue that athletic mobility is an ongoing process, a commodity that must continuously be achieved. The article provides material from an on-going PhD project concerning migratory routes between African and Scandinavian women’s football, and focuses attention on a case study of Nigerian women footballers’ migration out of their country of origin and into Scandinavian football clubs. The article concludes that, despite the unequal power relations that shape the global trade in athletic talent, sports migrants assert agency and control over important aspects of transnational movement and mobility.
