Writing for Pitch Invasion, Andrew Guest considers the increasing drain of soccer talent from African countries to European countries. Although a trend fraught with fears about the negative affects of globalization, such as the exploitation of labor and the severing of community ties, it also offers "some opportunities for African soccer to do globalization right," says Guest.

The drain of soccer talent from African countries recalls the so-called "brain drain" of the best African doctors, particularly acute in Ghana, where over 20 percent of the country's doctors have moved to the USA. But Guest notes a few ways that a country's soccer resources can function to benefit that country rather than strip it of valuable service. Guest writes: "The best players from all parts of the world, more and less developed, follow the money. And while that does have some negative effects on local leagues, it also offers possibilities for improved national teams and for a trickle-down of financial resources. One of the differences between soccer and medicine is that MDs do not get called back from the U.S. or UK to represent Ghana in surgical knockout tournaments, but soccer players do. While expatriate Ghanaian doctors and soccer players alike often share national pride, through the unlikely auspices of FIFA it is soccer players who have the more obvious opportunity to give something back."

The benefit of successful African players abroad has the potential to accrue in the burgeoning youth academies of African countries, academies that can take many different forms. While legitimate fears persist about unscrupulous agents who exploit unprotected youth players, many scholars have pointed to the positive impacts that some youth academies have had with socially conscious programs. Academies such as Ghana's "The Right to Dream", for example, tie soccer success to academic success. Of the first class of 15 youth players, two signed professionally in Europe but six obtained academic scholarships to British and American prep schools and one obtained a scholarship to UC Santa Barbara.