Metaphorical perceptions of national athletes towards naturalized athletes

Abstract

This study aims to determine the metaphorical perceptions of naturalized athletes toward recruiting athletes. The phenomenology design was used in qualitative research methods, and criterion sampling and snowball sampling methods from the purposeful sampling method were used to determine the participants. In this context, the criterion of being a national athlete in one of the branches of Athletics, Basketball, Boxing, Wrestling, Weightlifting, Judo, Canoeing, Table Tennis, and Swimming, in which Turkey was a national athlete in the 2016 Rio Olympics, was sought in the participants who will take part in the research. Two hundred-eight national athletes in 9 sports branches constituted the research group. In the study, a semi-structured interview form was used to determine the metaphorical perceptions of the athletes. Athletes completed the statement on the form, "A devshirme athlete is like…..… because….." In addition, to deepen the athletes' perceptions, five multiple-choice questions were prepared, including four questions about ‘The positive and negative effects of naturalized athletes on the branch and career’ and one question about ‘The continuity of the naturalized athletes system’. Qualitative data were analyzed using content analysis, and questionnaire data were analyzed using percentage and frequency methods. According to the findings, national athletes produced 153 metaphors in 25 different categories about naturalized athletes. National athletes developed metaphors in the negative categories of ‘Being Money-Oriented,’ ‘Running to Easy,’ and ‘Negative Impact on Domestic Athletes’ and the favorable categories of ‘Valuable,’ ‘Support,’ and ‘Locomotive’. As a result, in this study, it can be said that there is a generally negative perception of the national athletes towards naturalized athletes and that the naturalized athlete system is a tool used by sports managers to camouflage their failures in order to achieve short-term success and that national athletes perceive the naturalized athlete system as an obstacle to long-term sportive development.