societies, with some welfare support from their as well as clubs/unions/players’ associations (albeit declining) state welfare provision. In societies like Fiji that rely on an alternative cultural support mechanism, such risks and responsibility are transferred almost entirely to kin and community groups. Whilst the underlying principles are the same in all societies penetrated by commercial sports and hence the athlete exploitation discussed here is far from unique, the case of Fiji and other peripheral societies that supply elite rugby labour is significant for at least three reasons. Firstly, it is not only individual athletes but larger communities that are integrated into, and indeed subsidise, the existing professional rugby system by absorbing risks incurred by injury, etc. and by bearing (almost all) the cost of elite player production. This means that a substantial part of the population in Fiji subsidises commercial rugby by absorbing the deficits of the rugby with the collective safety-net ‘muscle trade’. Secondly, mechanism weakening as a result of intensifying globalising influences, the (especially material) well-being of the former, current and future athletes faces bleak prospects. In the event of further disintegration of the informal support system, athletes in these peripheral societies, without recourse to formal social protection, would arguably suffer even greater material deprivation and consequential psychological distress. Thirdly, the athletes and their communities are subjected to a Whilst the exploitation double structure of unequal exchange. of peripheral athletic labour by the athletic has attracted considerable ‘global system’ scholarly attention, our attention to the internal, national interviewees’ accounts call equal sport structures. Although those may not be driven to the same extent by the corporate capitalist imperatives of metropolitan clubs, they too capitalise on the self-sacrifice athletes’ and community support in response to the pressures from the reward ‘competitive structures’ of the international rugby system and the corporate world that distribute resources according to performance hierarchy, competition and market values. Connor notes: the of ‘exploitation the athlete does not need to be a result of the individual, calculated activities of a single actor within it is rather a manifestation of the focused, capital driven, sport’; ‘consumer spectacularised, corporatised and Our data demonstrate that professional marketed sport.’ rugby exemplifies such power dynamics of sport neoliberalisation, which, compounded by the historical, politico-economic inequity between core/metropolitan and peripheral societies,
societies, with some welfare support from their clubs/unions/players’ associations as well as (albeit declining) state welfare provision. In societies like Fiji that rely on an alternative cultural support mechanism, such risks and responsibility are transferred almost entirely to kin and community groups. Whilst the underlying principles are the same in all societies penetrated by commercial sports and hence the athlete exploitation discussed here is far from unique, the case of Fiji and other peripheral societies that supply elite rugby labour is significant for at least three reasons. Firstly, it is not only individual athletes but larger communities that are integrated into, and indeed subsidise, the existing professional rugby system by absorbing risks incurred by injury, etc. and by bearing (almost all) the cost of elite player production. This means that a substantial part of the population in Fiji subsidises commercial rugby by absorbing the deficits of the rugby ‘muscle trade’. Secondly, with the collective safety-net mechanism weakening as a result of intensifying globalising influences, the (especially material) well-being of the former, current and future athletes faces bleak prospects. In the event of further disintegration of the informal support system, athletes in these peripheral societies, without recourse to formal social protection, would arguably suffer even greater material deprivation and consequential psychological distress. Thirdly, the athletes and their communities are subjected to a double structure of unequal exchange. Whilst the exploitation of peripheral athletic labour by the ‘global athletic system’ has attracted considerable scholarly attention, our interviewees’ accounts call equal attention to the internal, national sport structures. Although those may not be driven to the same extent by the corporate capitalist imperatives of metropolitan clubs, they too capitalise on the athletes’ self-sacrifice and community support in response to the pressures from the ‘competitive reward structures’ of the international rugby system and the corporate world that distribute resources according to performance hierarchy, competition and market values. Connor notes: the ‘exploitation of the athlete does not need to be a result of the individual, calculated activities of a single actor within sport’; it is rather a manifestation of the ‘consumer focused, capital driven, spectacularised, corporatised and marketed sport.’ Our data demonstrate that professional rugby exemplifies such power dynamics of sport neoliberalisation, which, compounded by the historical, politico-economic inequity between core/metropolitan and peripheral societies,