Professionalization of Burkinabe Football: Analysis of a Global Problem and Elements of Organizational Methodology

Abstract

The sports sector has become a major economic field. This fact forces sports structures to be more professional, thus moving away from the amateurism and ideals of Pierre de Coubertin. Burkinabè football and its clubs find it difficult to follow this logic of professionalization, a factor that promotes performance. The general objective of this research is on the one hand, to analyze the organizational device of the football clubs of first division of Burkina Faso in their dynamics of professionalization by making an inventory of the difficulties inherent in this device; on the other hand to show the advantages of the sports society in an approach to solving these difficulties. Our results show that all of the clubs have administrative, legal, financial, infrastructural and logistical shortcomings, which are inherent in the associative status of these structures. Also, in a logic of professionalization, the stakeholders interviewed are part of the perspective of a sports society with better supervision of its operation with regard to its strengths.