"A girl playing soccer?": a qualitative study of capital conversion and gendered power structures among Korean female athletes.

“A girl playing soccer?”: a qualitative study of capital conversion and gendered power structures among Korean female athletes - PMC Skip to main content An official website of the United States government Here's how you know Here's how you know Official websites use .gov A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States. Secure .gov websites use HTTPS A lock ( Lock Locked padlock icon ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Search Log in Dashboard Publications Account settings Log out Search… Search NCBI Primary site navigation Search Logged in as: Dashboard Publications Account settings Log in Search PMC Full-Text Archive Search in PMC Journal List User Guide PERMALINK Copy As a library, NLM provides access to scientific literature. 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Learn more: PMC Disclaimer | PMC Copyright Notice BMC Psychol . 2026 Mar 7;14:535. doi: 10.1186/s40359-026-04307-w Search in PMC Search in PubMed View in NLM Catalog Add to search “A girl playing soccer?”: a qualitative study of capital conversion and gendered power structures among Korean female athletes Hyunkyun Ahn Hyunkyun Ahn 1 Department of Sport & Leisure Studies, Myongji College, Seoul, Republic of Korea Find articles by Hyunkyun Ahn 1 , Na-Young Choi Na-Young Choi 2 Division of Sorts and Exercise Science, Kunsan National University, Kunsan-si, Republic of Korea Find articles by Na-Young Choi 2, ✉ Author information Article notes Copyright and License information 1 Department of Sport & Leisure Studies, Myongji College, Seoul, Republic of Korea 2 Division of Sorts and Exercise Science, Kunsan National University, Kunsan-si, Republic of Korea ✉ Corresponding author. Received 2025 Dec 30; Accepted 2026 Mar 2; Collection date 2026. © The Author(s) 2026 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ . PMC Copyright notice PMCID: PMC13081322  PMID: 41794786 Abstract Introduction Women’s football in South Korea exists within a male-centered football field where gendered valuation and institutional priorities shape athletes’ opportunities and recognition. In this field, female athletes face a complex process of shaping their identities and social positions, regardless of their performance, while dealing with psychological burdens and structural barriers. To gain a better understanding of the mental and structural support needed for sustainable female athletic development, we investigated how Korean female soccer players are acquiring and converting cultural and social capital into economic capital within women’s football-specific gendered power relations and organizational structures. Grounded in Bourdieu’s capital theory and gender power theory, with an intersectionality lens, we explore the structural inequalities constraining capital accumulation and the athletes’ strategic responses to such constraints. Methods A qualitative case study approach is adopted in this study, examining the life experiences of former Korean female soccer players. Ten former athletes, with experience in semi-professional leagues, collegiate teams, or elite youth programs, were recruited using purposive sampling. Data were gathered through semi-structured in-depth interviews and document analysis. The analysis followed a systematic and iterative process to identify thematic patterns related to structural constraints and agentive responses. The participants were informed of the study’s purpose, and written consent was obtained prior to their involvement in the study. Results The women reported facing persistent structural barriers throughout their athletic careers, including limited financial support, restricted opportunities for skill development, and exclusion from formal social networks. Within the women’s football environment in South Korea, these constraints were described as being sustained by institutionally limited investment in women’s teams, wage and contract arrangements that signaled unequal valuation, and fragile competitive infrastructures with insufficient routinized league fixtures and scouting-visible opportunities. Accordingly, economic capital accumulation was constrained by low wages and contract instability, whereas cultural capital acquisition was limited by unstable match-based learning and evaluative visibility. Social capital accumulation was also shaped by coach-centered, informal networks that operated as gatekeeping routes for information, placement, and post-playing opportunities. Additionally, participants’ alternative strategies (international careers, certifications, digital self-branding) were positioned as compensatory adaptations to gendered valuation and organizational gatekeeping rather than as levers of institutional change. Conclusions Taken together, the findings suggest that gendered inequality in women’s football is reproduced through the combined operation of unequal valuation, constrained opportunity structures, and gatekeeping, which jointly shape athletes’ capital trajectories and limit conversion, particularly around career transition and post-playing planning. The findings indicate the need for reforms that stabilize investment and contract conditions, strengthen routinized competitive infrastructures and visibility pathways, and formalize transparent transition routes into coaching and administration, while also recognizing the psychosocial conditions under which athletes sustain motivation, self-evaluation, and future orientation. Keywords: Gendered power structures; Bourdieu’s capital theory; Korean female athletes, intersectionality, symbolic violence Introduction The question of “a girl playing soccer?” extends beyond mere stereotypes, reflecting deep, embedded gender norms shaped by sociocultural structures in which the field of sports has historically been understood as a masculine purview [ 1 ]. The perception of certain sports as being “masculine” or “feminine” significantly influences the experiences and evaluations of female athletes, both on and off the field, thereby exacerbating structural inequalities in sports [ 2 ]. As such, sports function as an arena where gender power relations dominate, compelling female athletes to undergo a complex process of negotiating their identities and social positions. Anchored in Bourdieu’s theory of practice, we approach women’s football as a social field where resources function as capital only through field-specific recognition, and where unequal opportunities for accumulation and conversion sustain enduring hierarchies of opportunity and legitimacy [ 3 ]. From this Bourdieusian perspective, we draw on Connell’s concept of “hegemonic masculinity” [ 4 , 5 ] and Butler’s theory of “performativity” [ 6 ] as complementary gender-theoretical lenses that help specify how gendered norms and identity practices operate within the football field. While Connell explains how dominant masculine norms are institutionally upheld within sports, Butler emphasizes that gender identity is not innate but is constructed through repeated performative acts. Female soccer players, participating in a male-dominated sport, face challenges related to their gender identity regardless of their performance; which often translate into both psychological burdens and structural barriers [ 7 – 10 ]. Although women’s sports have expanded globally, significant disparities in visibility, investment, and institutional prioritization persist [ 11 ]. These disparities are especially pronounced in South Korea, where women’s football develops within a sociocultural environment that privileges male-centered authority, seniority-based hierarchy, and norms of deference in institutional life. In this context, patriarchal and Confucian-influenced traditions shape organizational expectations about legitimate authority and compliance, defining who is authorized to decide, who is expected to comply, and whose sporting pathway is treated as worthy of long-term investment. For female footballers, these norms become consequential when gatekeeping actors (e.g., coaches and senior officials) concentrate decision-making power over selection, placement, educational pathways, and career transitions, while women’s teams continue to be institutionally framed as lower-priority sites of resource allocation and public recognition. As a result, even when the women’s national team achieves international success, recognition remains episodic and symbolically celebrated without being translated into sustained infrastructural commitment, routinized competitive opportunities, or durable post-playing pathways within the domestic field [ 12 ]. In South Korea, female soccer players experience persistent economic inequality in the form of lower wages, restricted sponsorship opportunities, and lack of media exposure [ 13 ]. Despite strategic policy declarations by global organizations, such as FIFA, to promote women’s soccer, actual support levels remain disproportionately low, with women’s sports treated as peripheral [ 14 ]. In South Korea, limited investment, sparse media coverage, and few competitive opportunities continue to pose significant barriers to its development [ 13 ]. As female players in professional leagues earn substantially less than their male counterparts, these economic disparities hinder the sustainability of the women’s leagues. The study by Lago et al. [ 15 ] reports a close correlation between a country’s gender equality index and the performance of its women’s soccer teams, suggesting that success in women’s soccer is contingent not solely on athletic competence, but also on broader socioeconomic structures. Another key impediment to the development of women’s soccer in South Korea is the low volume of coverage and the patterned framing through which coverage becomes biased. In many accounts, women footballers are rendered newsworthy through appearance- and femininity-centered descriptors, relational labeling, or narratives of exceptionality, whereas technical competence and tactical intelligence are treated as secondary. Such discursive patterns matter because they shape the conditions under which women’s performance becomes publicly legible as a “sport,” thereby limiting recognition as symbolic capital and weakening conversion into sponsorship and employment opportunities [ 16 , 17 ]. This framing reduces public recognition of women athletes’ professionalism and, in turn, constrains economic-capital acquisition through sponsorships and advertising [ 16 ]. Fink [ 16 ] argues that media depictions of female athletes are often framed through a lens of attractiveness and sexuality, which undermines their athletic achievements. Similarly, comparative reviews report that women’s sports receive limited media attention [ 11 ]; moreover, when coverage occurs, it often accentuates femininity or appearance rather than skill [ 16 ]. Korean female players also report significantly lower media exposure than their male counterparts, which adversely affects their opportunities for securing sponsorships and achieving financial independence [ 17 ]. Prior research reports that discriminatory and gender-biased sport-media environments are critical obstacles to female athletes’ efforts to accumulate and convert capital, thereby reinforcing evaluation regimes that are not grounded in performance [ 16 ]. Additionally, emerging patterns of sexualization and gender-based violence in digital media, such as those on social media platforms, have increased the vulnerability of female athletes [ 18 ]. Consistent with this, recent work in women’s football shows that misogynistic discourse and online gender-based violence on social media are associated with diminished professional returns to visibility, limiting sponsorship opportunities, personal branding, and career advancement [ 18 ]. Furthermore, gender inequality in sports extends beyond the playing field and into institutional and organizational structures. Gender inequality in women’s football is institutionally reproduced through organizational pipelines that regulate who gains access to decision-making roles and how sporting experience is translated into coaching, administrative, or governance positions. Within these pipelines, the conversion of sporting credentials into authoritative posts is frequently mediated by male-dominated selection networks, informal recommendations, and credential-recognition practices that privilege incumbents [ 19 , 20 ]. Similar patterns have been reported in South Korea, with female soccer players, despite their athletic excellence, being systematically excluded from decision-making positions in sports organizations [ 20 ]. Elite female athletes often occupy subordinate positions in hierarchical team environments dominated by male leadership, limiting their influence over training and strategy decisions and restricting their ability to accumulate social capital [ 21 ]. “Homologous reproduction,” the phenomenon where male administrators replicate existing power structures by selecting successors who share their gender and values, serves as a key mechanism of exclusion [ 19 ]. Jeong [ 20 ] argues that leadership exclusion hinders female athletes’ ability to build social capital, affecting their postretirement transitions and long-term career stability. Consequently, female athletes struggle to convert athletic achievements into long-term economic or social capital, undermining the sustainability of women’s soccer. Structural changes within sports organizations are therefore critical for the continued development of women’s soccer [ 19 , 20 ]. Although previous studies have documented gender-based discrimination in sports such as limited financial support, media bias, and discriminatory coaching attitudes, less attention has been paid to clarifying which national sociocultural dimensions in South Korea structure and intensify these constraints in women’s football, particularly in relation to investment, visibility, and long-term career sustainability [ 11 , 22 ]. In South Korea, female athletes encounter gender stereotypes and structural constraints both during and after their athletic careers [ 17 ]. In professional leagues, Korean female players receive less pay and fewer sponsorships than men and face limited social recognition owing to gendered media portrayals [ 13 , 23 ]. These multifaceted constraints—economic, cultural, and social—highlight that the development of women’s soccer in South Korea is not merely a matter of performance but is deeply embedded in structural inequality. Nevertheless, Korean female soccer players have proven to be active agents, rather than passive victims, who are able to adopt creative and strategic methods to accumulate and convert capital. To survive and thrive in a male-dominated sports field, many construct hybrid gender identities, use their feminine image for branding, or seek sponsorships through personal marketing [ 24 – 26 ]. Internationally, female athletes are also engaging in feminist activism and social change initiatives that challenge the prevailing power structures in sports [ 27 ], thus highlighting the agency of female athletes in navigating and transforming unequal systems. Accordingly, in this study, Bourdieu’s theory of practice provides the primary analytical framework for explaining how power is organized and reproduced within the football field through the accumulation and conversion of economic, cultural, and social capital. This approach is underpinned by a relational ontology in which “the field” is treated as a structured space of positions and valuation, and by an interpretive epistemology that attends to how actors’ dispositions and practices are formed and made meaningful within that space. Within this framework, Connell’s account of hegemonic masculinity is used to specify the gendered logic through which certain dispositions and competencies are institutionally privileged, whereas Butler’s concept of performativity is used to clarify how gender is enacted and negotiated in everyday practices, which can have significant consequences for recognition and symbolic valuation. Accordingly, Connell & Butler are mobilized as complementary lenses that refine the gendered content of valuation and recognition, rather than as parallel “standalone” frameworks. The intersectionality perspective further enables a nuanced understanding of how various social categories—such as economic class, cultural background, and gender—interact to produce complex layers of disadvantage [ 28 ]. Using these theories as a backdrop, we explore the strategic responses of former Korean female soccer players in accumulating and converting capital in a gender powered sports environment. By highlighting their strategic agency when facing structural constraints, our aim is to provide both new theoretical insights and practical recommendations for policy reform and for advancing gender equity and sustainable athlete development in South Korea. Structural inequalities limit athletic progression and have significant implications for female athletes’ mental health. Addressing and gaining a better understanding of gendered power relations in South Korea is critically important as a pathway for promoting both career sustainability and mental health resilience in women’s sports. In this study, ‘capital’ refers to differentiated resources that become effective within the football field to the extent that they are socially recognized and convertible across economic, cultural, and social forms. ‘Capital conversion’ denotes the process through which one form of capital is translated into another under field-specific rules of valuation and access, which is analytically central for explaining how gendered power relations shape career sustainability and post-playing trajectories. To this end, our study addresses the following questions: Research Question 1: How do Korean female soccer players accumulate and convert economic, cultural, and social capital? Research Question 2: What strategies do they employ to overcome structural inequalities embedded in gendered power relations? Research Question 3: How does the process of capital conversion impact the long-term dynamics of gendered power structures in sports? Theoretical framework Applying theories of capital, gender, and power in the sports milieu Sports function as a critical social practice, affecting individuals’ social positions and economic opportunities while simultaneously being structured by specific social contexts [ 3 , 29 , 30 ]. Bourdieu’s theory of capital provides a useful analytical framework for understanding the structural constraints and opportunities encountered by female soccer players, particularly within highly competitive and stratified sports fields. According to Bourdieu [ 3 ], economic, cultural, and social capital significantly influence how individuals negotiate their positions and acquire power within a given social field. Economic capital refers to tangible resources and material wealth, manifested within sports as player salaries, sponsorship contracts, and media exposure [ 13 , 16 ]. Cultural capital encompasses field-recognized knowledge, credentials, and competencies that are valued within a social field; in Bourdieusian terms, it operates through embodied dispositions and know-how, institutionalized credentials, and objectified cultural goods [ 3 ]. In the sports context, technical and tactical know-how can be understood as embodied cultural capital insofar as it is socially recognized as legitimate competence within the field. Social capital involves networks and social relationships, exemplified in sports by relationships with coaches, teammates, media connections, and fan engagement [ 19 , 20 ]. Physical capital refers to bodily capacities and performance resources accumulated through training and competition that become valuable within the sporting field. Sports uniquely function as arenas for social mobility or exclusion, predominantly through the acquisition and conversion of capital. Bourdieu [ 3 ] emphasizes the convertibility of the types of capital, suggesting that capital can be transformed into different forms depending on the social context. For example, cultural capital, such as a player’s field-recognized expertise and institutionalized credentials, can be converted into economic capital through salaries or sponsorships, whereas social capital can facilitate career transitions into coaching or administrative roles postretirement [ 31 , 32 ]. Physical capital may also be converted into economic returns through selection, contracts, and performance-based valuation, yet such conversion remains contingent on field-specific recognition and gatekeeping. However, this convertibility is not equally accessible to all individuals; rather, it is differentiated by one’s position, field characteristics, and internalized habitus. As mentioned, female soccer players encounter distinct gender-based structural constraints in accumulating and converting capital. Economically, they face lower wages and fewer sponsorship opportunities, reflecting the undervalued commercial status of women’s sports compared with that in men’s [ 13 , 33 ]. Culturally, their competencies and technical expertise are often underestimated owing to prevailing social prejudices, significantly hindering their capital conversion opportunities [ 16 , 23 , 34 ]. Socially, they frequently experience exclusion from male-dominated networks within sports organizations, severely limiting their leadership and administrative opportunities following retirement [ 20 , 35 ]. These gender-based constraints also manifest through what Bourdieu refers to as symbolic violence, a relational process through which dominant norms become taken-for-granted standards of value and legitimacy, restricting women’s opportunities and identities [ 3 ]. The perspective of intersectionality [ 36 ] also offers an additional context that illustrates how gender intersects with class, region, and family expectations, creating further barriers. In the Korean setting, such intersections can be read as conditions that differentially shape access to institutional opportunities and recognition within the field of women’s football. Raewyn Connell’s [ 4 ] hegemonic masculinity theory offers insights into how institutionalized norms maintain gender hierarchies, and Butler’s [ 6 ] performativity theory highlights how female athletes actively and strategically respond to these constraints through repeated social practices. Connell views sports as an institutional field normalizing and reproducing male norms, whereas Butler underscores gender as a dynamic process continually constructed through social interactions. Together with Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice, these perspectives enable an integrated account of how capital is differentially recognized, accumulated, and converted under gendered conditions within the sports field. Across these perspectives, gendered power is approached as a field-specific order reproduced through institutional arrangements and everyday practices of recognition, valuation, and boundary-making. Within this study, Bourdieu’s theory of practice provides the primary framework for analyzing how capital, habitus, and symbolic violence operate in the sporting field, whereas Connell’s hegemonic masculinity specifies the gender order through which sporting hierarchies are reproduced, and Butler’s performativity directs analytic attention to the interactional practices through which gender norms are enacted and contested. Through these perspectives, the experiences of female athletes can be framed as proactive practices challenging and restructuring gendered power relations and not as narratives of victimization. Gendered power structures and female agency in sports Situated in South Korea, women’s football is embedded in a comparatively centralized development system in which school-based teams and coach-mediated selection often operate as the primary pathway to elite participation, whereas a relatively narrow ecology of university, semi-professional, and professional opportunities can intensify dependence on a limited set of gatekeepers and institutional decisions [ 21 , 33 ]. Within this configuration, the struggle over capital is shaped by individual performance and by institutional access to competitions, scouting visibility, and career transition channels that are unevenly distributed within the field [ 13 , 16 , 33 ]. Historically, sports have been socially constructed as arenas dominated by masculine values and cultural norms, significantly limiting female participation and advancement. Gendered power structures within sports critically shape opportunities available to female athletes, manifested specifically through limited economic capital, undervaluation of cultural capital, and exclusion from social capital networks [ 21 , 33 ]. In the Korean setting, hierarchical relations within teams and sport institutions can further heighten the practical costs of contesting coaching authority or established gender boundaries, thereby shaping when and how female athletes’ agency becomes possible, constrained, or strategically expressed [ 28 , 37 ]. Connell’s [ 4 ] theory of “hegemonic masculinity” provides a comprehensive framework for understanding how male-centered norms are structurally maintained within sports. According to Connell, sports reinforce gender hierarchies by valorizing traits, such as physical superiority, competitiveness, and toughness, typically associated with masculinity. Consequently, female athletes are marginalized as outside these normative criteria, resulting in systemic undervaluation of their capabilities and contributions [ 5 ]. Butler’s [ 6 ] concept of “performativity” posits that gender is not a stable identity but is continuously constituted through repetitive acts, gestures, and discourses. This definition provides a critical lens for understanding how athletes actively construct and reconstitute their gender identities in response to prevailing norms. Rather than viewing female athletes as simply subjected to gendered expectations, performativity emphasizes their role in enacting, resisting, or reconfiguring those expectations. Female athletes do not passively adhere to male-centered gender norms; instead, they actively engage in strategic performance, either adopting or subverting these norms to negotiate and reposition their identities within the sports hierarchy; these aspects represent the agentic practices through which women can strategically intervene in and renegotiate existing gendered power structures [ 6 , 8 ]. Analyzing gendered power dynamics in sports requires moving beyond simplistic binary frameworks to adopt an intersectional approach. Crenshaw’s [ 36 ] intersectionality theory emphasizes that gender inequalities are compounded by intersecting social categories, such as race, class, and cultural background, resulting in multifaceted forms of discrimination. The exclusion and constraints experienced by female athletes must, thus, be understood through the gender lens and as shaped by intersecting societal factors [ 28 , 37 ]. Economically, female athletes experience significantly fewer sponsorships and less media exposure than with their male counterparts, reflecting the structural undervaluation of women’s sports as a commercial enterprise [ 13 , 16 , 33 ]. Culturally, the professional expertise and athletic performance of female athletes are frequently assessed according to gendered criteria, predominantly based on physical appearance, overshadowing their genuine athletic competencies [ 13 , 23 , 34 ]. Socially, the male-dominated networks within sports organizations limit women’s opportunities for leadership and administrative roles, adversely affecting their accumulation and mobilization of social capital [ 38 ]. Particularly, the phenomenon of “homologous reproduction” in sports administration—with male leaders selecting other men with similar backgrounds and values—creates a restrictive mechanism that structurally inhibits women’s entry and upward mobility [ 39 ]. Ultimately, the gendered power structures inherent in sports pose significant obstacles to the growth and development of female athletes and sports organizations alike. Addressing these structural inequalities necessitates comprehensive policy interventions aimed at enhancing female athletes’ access to economic, cultural, and social capital. Additionally, multilayered and inclusive support systems reflecting diverse societal contexts are essential for promoting substantial and sustainable gender equality in sports. Moreover, fostering inclusive, intersectional, and informed support systems is crucial for achieving sustained and meaningful gender equality in sports. In the Korean context, this additionally entails widening of institutional pathways beyond the narrow gatekeeping channels and strengthening safeguards around selection, mobility, and career transitions in women’s football, as these field conditions directly shape the types of capital that can be accumulated, recognized, and converted in practice [ 21 , 33 ]. Taken together, Bourdieu’s concepts of capital, habitus, and symbolic violence [ 3 ], complemented by hegemonic masculinity [ 4 ], performativity [ 6 ], and intersectionality [ 36 ], provide an integrated analytical lens for examining how gendered power relations shape the conditions under which capital is accumulated, recognized, and converted within the field of women’s football in the Korean sport setting which is characterized by centralized developmental pathways and unevenly distributed institutional opportunities. In this study, cultural capital is approached as field-recognized knowledge, credentials, and embodied know-how, whereas physical capital denotes embodied performance capacities; both forms are subject to differential recognition and convertibility under gendered conditions within the sports field. This framework orients the analysis toward field-level constraints and gendered norms that structure opportunity, evaluation, and career trajectories, while also allowing attention to agentic practices through which female athletes negotiate and reposition themselves within these conditions [ 6 , 8 ]. Methodology Study design We employed a qualitative case study methodology to comprehensively examine Korean female soccer players’ capital conversion and survival processes within the gendered power structure. Consistent with an interpretivist qualitative paradigm, a multiple-case study design is adopted in this study in which each retired female footballer is treated as a bounded case situated within the shared field of women’s football in South Korea [ 40 , 41 ]. Ontologically, we conceptualize gendered constraints in women’s football as socially produced and institutionally sustained field conditions rather than as fixed attributes. Epistemologically, we treat interview accounts as situated knowledge co-constructed in the research encounter; thus, analytic claims are grounded in a transparent interpretive process that links themes to participants’ narratives rather than focusing on statistical representativeness. The research process was conducted reflexively, and key analytic decisions were documented through reflexive memos and iterative team discussions to examine how researchers’ assumptions and interpretive standpoints could shape interviewing and interpretation. This design supports within-case tracing of career trajectories and cross-case comparison of how capital is accumulated, recognized, and converted under gendered conditions, providing a contextualized account of capital conversion rather than a logic of statistical generalization [ 40 , 41 ]. The study’s theoretical framework is integrated into the case study design by guiding what is examined within each case and how gendered power relations are interpreted across cases. Analysis is anchored in Bourdieu’s theory of practice for conceptualizing the sporting field and interpreting participants’ accounts in terms of capital, habitus, and symbolic violence [ 3 ]. Connell’s hegemonic masculinity further specifies the gender order through which institutional hierarchies and legitimacy standards are reproduced in sport [ 4 ], whereas Butler’s performativity sensitizes interpretation to the interactional enactment and contestation of gender norms in everyday sporting relations [ 6 ]. Intersectionality is used to attend to differentiated positioning within the same field context, foregrounding how gendered constraints are co-shaped by class and by regional and familial conditions [ 36 ]. Grounded in this positioning, we aimed to interpret how retired Korean female footballers understood and negotiated gendered constraints throughout their career trajectories [ 42 ]. Participants and sampling The participants were former soccer players in South Korea who had competed in semi-professional leagues, university teams, or elite-level middle and high school programs and were no longer actively playing. This breadth was purposively sought through a maximum-variation purposeful sampling strategy to capture within-field variation in how capital is valued and becomes convertible across performance-linked opportunity structures, while keeping the case contextually bounded to the shared national field of women’s football in South Korea. After retiring from organized soccer, these individuals transitioned into diverse occupational roles, including coaching, sports administration, community-based sports instruction, elementary school coaching, freelance sports work, and roles outside the sports sector. This diversity in post-athletic occupations allowed us to examine how economic, cultural, and social capital accumulated during their athletic careers was strategically converted and recontextualized in their later professional lives from multiple dimensions. Purposeful sampling was employed to select 10 participants who could provide rich insights into the processes of capital conversion and strategic responses to gendered power structures as former female soccer players in Korea [ 43 ]. Eligibility criteria required that participants (a) had completed an elite or competitive pathway within Korean women’s football (elite middle/high school, university, or semi-professional level), (b) had retired from organized football, and (c) had experienced post-retirement transitions in which sport-related resources could be recontextualized. The participants were contacted through referrals within targeted professional coaching networks. No financial incentives were provided, and all interviews were scheduled at the participants’ convenience. The sampling strategy aimed to capture diverse and comprehensive perspectives from these individuals with elite athletic backgrounds. Sampling continued until the dataset demonstrated sufficient informational power for the study aim, indicated by repeated recurrence of core patterns in capital valuation and conversion, while still preserving meaningful variation across cases by competitive level and career pathway. The final sample size was deemed appropriate for the study aim because it generated sufficiently rich case material to trace capital valuation and conversion across career trajectories while preserving meaningful variation by competitive level and post-retirement pathway, consistent with qualitative principles that emphasize information richness and analytic adequacy over statistical representativeness [ 44 ]. The purposeful and diverse sample enabled an in-depth analysis of how former female soccer players negotiated their capital and identities within gendered structural constraints, effectively highlighting both opportunities and limitations encountered during their capital conversion processes (Table 1 ). Table 1. Participant demographics Pseudonym Sex Age Duration of Athletic Career Current Occupation Jeong Female 29 9 years Fitness and Wellness Coach Shin Female 32 10 years Non-sports sector employee Lee Female 29 8 years Fitness and Wellness Coach Choi Female 34 13 years Sports administrator Oh Female 33 15 years Elementary school sports coach Park Female 32 16 years Community sports coach Ahn Female 29 7 years Elementary school sports coach Cha Female 30 12 years Community sports coach Ji Female 31 10 years Non-sports sector employee Ko Female 31 10 years Freelance recreational sports coach Open in a new tab Data collection Data were collected between April and May 2025 through in-depth interviews and document analysis. Each respondent participated in 3–4 individual interviews lasting approximately 60–90 min. All interviews were digitally recorded with prior informed consent and subsequently transcribed verbatim. Interview questions were based on the research questions, explicitly incorporating Bourdieu’s [ 3 ] capital theory, Connell’s [ 4 ] concept of hegemonic masculinity, Butler’s [ 6 ] performativity theory, and Crenshaw’s [ 36 ] intersectionality theory. The questions were categorized into three dimensions: economic capital (wages, sponsorships, financial rewards), cultural capital (technical skills, performance evaluations, perceptions of femininity), and social capital (relationships with coaches and peers, organizational authority, networks postretirement). Some of the questions were as follows: How do male-centered values within sports organizations influence capital accumulation?; How do female athletes strategically construct their gender identity in response to gendered expectations?; and How do socioeconomic background, education, and regional factors influence capital conversion processes? To elicit concrete narratives and lived experiences, these theoretical questions were followed by personalized, experience-oriented prompts such as “Can you describe a time when you felt excluded from an opportunity?”, “How did your team or coach respond to your leadership?”, or “Have you ever felt that your skills were assessed differently because of your gender?” This approach enabled participants to narrate specific incidents in connection with broader conceptual themes, ensuring both theoretical relevance and experiential depth. The interviews followed a semi-structured approach [ 45 ], allowing flexibility for participants to freely elaborate while systematically addressing core themes. The questions were formulated to be clear and understandable, and interview sequences were adapted flexibly based on the context [ 42 ]. Document analysis was conducted to complement the interview data. Document selection was guided by relevance to women’s football in South Korea and to the study’s analytic focus on capital valuation, gendered institutional practices, and post-retirement transitions. Therefore, documents were included if they (a) addressed women’s football structures or labor conditions, (b) reported on gendered inequalities or resource allocation in the sport, or (c) constituted participant-provided or publicly accessible materials that contextualized their narrated experiences. Documentary materials were reviewed using a structured extraction approach aligned with the coding framework, and analytic memos were produced to document how documentary content corroborated, contextualized, or qualified interview accounts. In analysis, documents were used for contextualization and triangulation rather than as standalone cases, and they were linked to interview segments when participants referenced, contested, or interpreted institutional practices reflected in these sources. Data analysis We employed Braun & Clarke’s [ 46 ] thematic analysis model to systematically examine and interpret the qualitative data collected from our in-depth interviews and document analysis. Coding and theme development were organized using Braun & Clarke’s six-phase procedure [ 46 ] as a structured analytic framework suitable for a multi-case design, and themes were developed through iterative comparison and refinement across the dataset rather than assumed to “emerge” automatically. Thematic analysis is particularly suitable for identifying recurring patterns and meanings within qualitative data, ensuring both the theoretical coherence and methodological rigor necessary for exploring how Korean female soccer players strategically negotiated capital conversion within gendered power dynamics. Analytic work followed Braun and Clarke’s six phases [ 46 ], progressing from repeated familiarization with transcripts and documents to theory-informed initial coding of meaning units (economic, cultural, and social capital) with inductive refinements and iterative development of candidate themes within and across cases. Final themes were refined through review of coded extracts and the full dataset, documented via codebook revisions and analytic memos, and reported through illustrative extracts linking thematic claims to the case context and the integrated theoretical framework [ 3 , 36 ]. Our data analysis followed a structured, iterative process. Initially, all interview recordings were transcribed verbatim and reviewed repeatedly to ensure familiarity with and understanding of the data. The first round of coding was guided primarily by Bourdieu’s [ 3 ] capital theory and gender theory, focusing on economic, cultural, and social capital as central categories. This initial coding identified and categorized the participants’ experiences related to structural barriers and their strategic responses within the sports environment. Connell’s [ 4 ] concept of hegemonic masculinity, Butler’s [ 6 ] theory of performativity, and Crenshaw’s [ 36 ] intersectionality theory were subsequently used to deepen and complement the primary analytical framework. These supplementary theories provided nuanced insights into how gendered norms, identities, and intersecting social categories informed the participants’ strategic responses. Through iterative coding cycles, similar codes were clustered into themes representing significant structural challenges and participants’ strategic practices. The analysis resulted in three overarching thematic categories: “Female Soccer Players’ Capital Acquisition and Structural Barriers,” “Gendered Power Structures and Strategic Responses,” and “Capital Conversion Strategies and Processes.” To maintain consistency and analytic rigor, two researchers independently coded the interview transcripts and iteratively compared and refined a shared codebook; discrepancies were resolved through consensus adjudication with an audit trail of decisions [ 47 – 49 ]. Any discrepancies during coding were collaboratively reviewed and resolved, enhancing the trustworthiness and validity of the findings. To further validate the interpretations and deepen our understanding of the participants’ life experiences, we employed a member reflection approach [ 50 ]. This method involves reflective dialogue between the researchers and the participants, allowing the participants to actively engage with and validate the preliminary findings. The finalized themes were interpreted through the lens of Bourdieu’s capital theory and gender theory, with complementary insights from hegemonic masculinity, performativity, and intersectionality theories, thus providing a multidimensional and theoretically rich analysis of capital conversion strategies within gendered sports structures. Integrity and ethical considerations We used several procedures to ensure study rigor and ethical integrity. All participants were fully informed in advance about the research objectives, procedures, and their right to withdraw at any point. Written informed consent was obtained before starting the interviews. Anonymity was protected using pseudonyms, and any identifying information was removed or modified during data collection. Particular care was taken when discussing sensitive topics—such as structural inequality, gendered power, and capital conversion—by attending to participants’ emotional cues and allowing them to set boundaries. To ensure emotional safety, participants were reminded of their right to skip questions or withdraw at any point, and interviews were flexibly adjusted when any signs of distress emerged. Interviews were conducted in quiet, private settings—such as university offices or neutral spaces chosen by participants—to minimize psychological discomfort and ensure a safe environment for discussing sensitive issues. Emotional support was also offered before and after interviews to support participant well-being. All data collected were securely stored as password-protected files managed by the principal investigator. The entire research process was conducted in accordance with ethical standards and received approval from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of Jeju National University (JJNU-IRB-2025-033). Results We explore how Korean female soccer players acquire economic, cultural, and social capital within the sports environment and strategically convert such capital. We also analyze how these processes interact with gendered power structures. Our results imply that female soccer players face multifaceted structural constraints in accumulating and utilizing capital within a gendered sports framework. We found that these women and others like them actively engaged in diverse strategies and practices to reposition themselves within this restrictive environment. Three key categories emerged from our interviews: (1) structural barriers to female soccer players’ capital acquisition, (2) strategies for responding to gendered power structures, and (3) processes of capital conversion. Structural barriers to capital acquisition among female soccer players The respondents indicated that as female soccer players, they encountered several structural barriers to acquiring economic, cultural, and social capital. Their opportunities for capital accumulation were described as institutionally constrained, shaped by gendered valuation and organizational priorities within the sport. This section presents a detailed analysis of the constraints participants described across economic, cultural, and social domains. Acquisition of economic capital and structural inequalities Most participants in this study built their careers within elite youth, collegiate, or semi-professional settings, where short-term contracts and limited financial security were recurring features of everyday athletic life. Across accounts, economic insecurity was repeatedly narrated alongside gendered evaluations of women’s football as a low-value domain, and participants described limited investment as a recurring condition shaping their career feasibility. Cha similarly noted that the economic constraints she experienced were repeatedly justified through a discourse that positioned women’s football as a low-return and low-demand field: When I was younger, I often heard, ‘Women’s football isn’t even developed; even if you succeed, you won’t make much money—why women’s football?’ People would say, ‘I wouldn’t let my daughter play soccer.’ … The demand is different, and the support is different. Here, the perceived absence of ‘market demand’ operated as a gendered rationale for reduced support, shaping both family-level decisions and broader expectations of career viability. Participants also highlighted institutional and organizational investment logics in which women’s teams were treated as expendable costs. Jeong explained that teams were sometimes dissolved because women’s football was framed as a budget burden rather than a domain of return: If there isn’t a star player who can bring results, companies say, ‘Women’s football only spends budget,’ and they shut the team down. This narrative links organizational decision-making to gendered valuation, as participants described team continuity and employment security as contingent on whether women’s football was treated as a domain worth investing in. Oh further articulated the wage structure as a symbol of institutional contradiction: The top salary in women’s football is still below the minimum salary in men’s football… They say women’s football should be developed, but they don’t want to spend money. It felt like they wanted development while keeping investment minimal. For participants, wage structures and investment decisions signaled how women’s football was valued within the field. Several participants further described that uncertainty surrounding short-term contracts intensified as they approached retirement because the most immediate post-playing pathway within football—coaching—was perceived as both low-paid and gender-stratified. Ahn explained that even after retirement, Even as a woman, if you work as a coach you only earn about two million won. You simply can’t make a living on that. She added that even when coaching was treated as the most immediate transition, advancement was perceived as constrained for women: As a woman, there’s a glass ceiling… men can move through the process more easily, but women are blocked. Lee further described the scarcity of institutional routes available to women after retirement: For former women players, there’s really no place to establish themselves. Taken together, these accounts show that participants associated economic insecurity with gendered valuation and constrained investment in women’s football, and they also described post-playing pathways within football as limited, insufficiently compensated, and difficult to advance within, which restricted the feasibility of long-term career planning. Gendered constraints on cultural capital acquisition The participants also noted that as female soccer players, they faced significant barriers in acquiring essential cultural capital, such as technical and tactical competencies. Training methodologies for them often focused disproportionately on physical endurance rather than skill development, limiting their opportunities for increasing their competitive experience and technical expertise. They further described women’s football as offering fewer routinized competitive platforms (e.g., league fixtures, tournaments, scouting-visible matches), which constrained both match-based learning and the institutional recognition of performance. Park recalled training experiences with male peers: In elementary school, I trained alongside boys. The coach told girls to avoid physical contact, focusing more on stamina exercises. While boys practiced skills, we merely ran. This statement reflects a structured gender disparity in schools, with young girls receiving fewer opportunities to develop technical skills crucial for competitive advancement. Beyond training intensity, participants consistently identified cultural-capital constraints in the organization of competition itself, particularly the absence or fragility of routinized league structures that ordinarily generate match repetition and evaluative visibility. Jeong explained that the lack of a weekend league was not an incidental inconvenience but a structural consequence of the small number of women’s teams, which made regular competition logistically impossible: We don’t have a weekend league. There are no teams to run a weekend league with. A weekend league is usually organized within each region, but in Gyeonggi it was basically only us; with only two high-school teams you cannot run a league. Because there is no league, Saturdays and Sundays are often just empty. In Jeong’s account, limited match repetition was attributed to the scarcity of teams and the resulting inability to sustain a regular league structure, rather than to individual-level limitations. Accordingly, participants described the accumulation of tactical competence and match-based expertise as difficult to sustain through routine competitive cycles. Participants further described that scouting and visibility infrastructures were not organized around women’s football as a normal, continuous system, but rather operated in ways that made women’s talent identification contingent and exceptional. Ko recalled that competitive and scouting pathways were centered on boys’ tournaments and weekend-league participation, and that girls’ visibility often depended on being actively “found” through special arrangements: Because the boys had tournaments, they played the weekend league. I went in and played that weekend league, and a coach came to watch a practice match and selected me. At that time, girls’ footballers were rare and hard to find, so you basically had to ‘scout’ them even at the elementary-school level. In Ko’s narrative, opportunities for visibility and selection were depicted as episodic and arrangement-dependent for girls, rather than routinely produced through a stable competitive infrastructure. She thus portrayed girls’ access to evaluative attention as contingent on scarcity-driven scouting and exceptional exposure. Notably, some participants indicated that these constraints persisted beyond school contexts and were reproduced at higher competitive levels through unstable team continuity and tournament-centered participation. Ji described how women’s teams could be organized around major events rather than continuous league participation: Sejong WFC existed only briefly for a year, so we only had the major tournaments. We did not play a regular WK League season; we only entered the Championship and the National Sports Festival. Ji described competitive participation as being concentrated in a limited set of major events, rather than being organized through continuous league fixtures, which she associated with restricted opportunities for sustained match repetition and development. Taken together, these accounts indicate that participants portrayed cultural-capital acquisition as constrained by gendered evaluations of women’s football, the fragility of routinized competitive structures, and contingent access to scouting-visible opportunities, shaping how technical and tactical competence could be accumulated and institutionally recognized within the women’s football field. Limitations in social capital and network formation The participants also indicated that as female soccer players, they had to rely heavily on their relationships with their coaches, peers, and seniors to secure opportunities. However, these networks were comparatively limited and often informal, constraining their autonomy and career choices. Jeong described her introduction to soccer through informal coaching recommendations: There was no soccer team in my elementary school. After seeing me play casually with boys, a coach recommended joining a middle school girls’ soccer team. Without that coach’s encouragement, I might never have pursued soccer. This point highlights that for girls, the ability to form social capital in the sports context is often informal and heavily reliant on the support from individual coaches rather than institutional support. Shin expressed frustration over limited autonomy in her university selection: I had a preferred university, but my coach directed me elsewhere. Ultimately, I had to follow his decision, limiting my control over my career path. This statement highlights the systemic restrictions on female athletes’ career autonomy, demonstrating their vulnerability to hierarchical, male-dominated decision-making processes. Oh emphasized relational influences on opportunity distribution: Players close to coaches receive more opportunities. Even skilled players without strong relationships struggle to secure chances. The participant’s statement reflects how informal networks, rather than merit-based evaluations, predominantly determine opportunity allocation, reflecting significant structural bias. Overall, the responses revealed substantial structural impediments limiting female soccer players’ accumulation and conversion of social capital. They highlight a reality where informal relationships and hierarchical power dynamics restrict female athletes’ autonomy and access to opportunities. These structural conditions underscore Bourdieu’s assertion that social capital accumulation is profoundly shaped by power relations within specific fields. Gendered power structures and strategic responses of female soccer players The participants’ responses reflected that as female soccer players, they were not passive victims of gender inequality within sports but were actively adapting and repositioning themselves strategically despite structural constraints. This section analyzes the specific forms of gender inequality experienced by Korean female soccer players and their corresponding strategic responses. Experiences of gender inequality and discriminatory structures As former female soccer players, the participants consistently reported experiencing more stringent evaluations than male peers within comparable training and competitive settings, across contexts that included training, match management, and organizational routines. These accounts extended beyond isolated interpersonal episodes and were described as institutionalized practices and recurring patterns that, in the participants’ view, constrained the systematic organization and development of women’s soccer. Park described discriminatory attitudes during training sessions: Even when we made similar mistakes, boys were often overlooked, while girls were immediately reprimanded. I couldn’t understand why standards were stricter for women’s soccer despite doing the same sport. Such accounts highlight patterns of differential evaluation that participants associated with self-censorship and reduced confidence, insofar as more stringent standards were normalized for female athletes. Similarly, Ahn recalled negative attitudes from her coach: Our coach openly dismissed women’s soccer as uninteresting and inferior, citing slower gameplay and lower technical skills. But how can we compete equally when we are given fewer training opportunities? This account underscores how gendered devaluation was experienced as shaping access to training opportunities and developmental resources, indicating how biased perceptions were linked to constraints on women’s soccer development. Choi shared her experience regarding unequal media exposure: Male players receive media coverage even for minor matches, while female soccer rarely attracts attention unless it’s a national team game. This lack of exposure results in fewer sponsorships and makes our careers increasingly difficult. Limited media exposure was described as a patterned inequality in recognition that participants linked to sponsorship opportunities and heightened pressure for continual self-validation. Taken together, these narratives indicate that participants experienced gendered expectations and unequal standards as recurring institutional practices and patterns that shaped everyday interactions and opportunity structures within women’s soccer. Strategic responses to gender inequality by female athletes Despite facing structural disadvantages, the respondents indicated that female soccer players were proactively pursuing strategies that redefined their identities and established a sustainable basis for their sports career. Demonstrating agency and strategic autonomy, they explored pathways for capital conversion within the constraints imposed by gendered power dynamics. Lee described her strategy of avoiding direct comparisons with male athletes and strengthening a unique identity within women’s sports: At first, being compared to male players was discouraging. Now, I believe women’s soccer has its distinct appeal. We need to develop our own style and solidarity. Her statement reflects a strategic effort to establish women’s soccer as an autonomous field with its own intrinsic value rather than merely a subordinate counterpart to men’s soccer. Jeong emphasized leveraging digital platforms, such as social media and YouTube, to gain visibility: Male athletes naturally get media attention, but we have limited options. Female players increasingly use YouTube and social media to connect directly with fans and raise our profile. Jeong’s strategy goes beyond individual self-promotion to collectively enhance women’s soccer marketability and social recognition. Cha discussed the challenges of pursuing coaching qualifications owing to gendered administrative structures: I wanted to earn a coaching license, but female coaches are rare, and teams overwhelmingly prefer male coaches. Women’s soccer decisions are still predominantly male-driven, limiting our opportunities significantly. Cha’s experience underscores structural obstacles that restrict female athletes’ career transition, particularly into sports administration and coaching, further limiting their opportunities to utilize accumulated social capital effectively. These responses imply that these former female soccer players believe that players should actively engage with structural inequalities not merely for their individual survival but to collectively establish women’s soccer legitimacy and sustainability. In so doing, they can emerge as active agents who voice their concerns, innovate solutions, and potentially disrupt existing power structures. Attempts and limitations in changing female athletes’ positions within gendered power structures Participants who had transitioned into coaching described “repositioning” as an aspiration for institutional reform and as an everyday effort to secure legitimacy, influence routine decision-making, and protect players within football settings. These attempts were repeatedly narrated as practical and incremental, yet constrained by persistent gendered expectations and informal hierarchies that limited women’s authority even after role transition. Oh described being questioned as a young woman coach: Because I started coaching at a young age, there were many parents who looked down on me. I was a woman coach, only twenty-three… they didn’t recognize me as a coach… I tried hard not to be dismissed. So I obtained the B-level license at twenty-five. I did it very quickly. I was the youngest. Her account shows that entering coaching did not automatically translate into recognized authority; instead, she framed qualification as a concrete resource mobilized to reduce everyday dismissal and to expand the conditions under which she could speak and be taken seriously in routine interactions. Ji commented on pay disparities in women’s football: If women’s football is to have a future… the salary of the very top person in women’s football [a female player] has to become the same as the salary of the very top person in men’s football [a male player]… If it doesn’t change at the top, it can’t come down… The highest-paid player [in women’s football] doesn’t even reach the lowest salary in men’s football. This statement locates “change” in an institutional benchmark that can be publicly compared and verified, and it frames the limits of women’s repositioning as inseparable from how compensation systems continue to signal unequal valuation across the gendered field. Choi described her determination to coach differently: In women’s football, there were many coaches who weren’t passionate, who weren’t serious about football. They didn’t teach much, they weren’t committed, and they bullied the players—and I hated that. So I made a promise to myself: ‘I should never become like that. I want to become a coach who truly teaches the players good things. Her narrative presents role transition into coaching as a deliberate attempt to reshape what is normalized in everyday training relationships—placing the locus of change in how players are taught, treated, and developed—while simultaneously implying the difficulty of sustaining such commitments within a wider coaching culture she depicts as uneven and, at times, misaligned with athlete-centered development. Lee described internal hierarchies and pressures in coaching workplaces: They form lines inside. Because I was the only one who could handle administrative work, I ended up taking on the important administrative tasks. But they became jealous of that… they kept pressuring me… In the end, it exploded and I quit. ‘The football coaching world is all the same… it hasn’t changed. This account highlights a recurrent limit of repositioning; even when women coaches assume indispensable labor that brings them closer to institutional operations, informal power relations can reassert themselves through exclusion and pressure, thereby narrowing the durability of their attempted repositioning within the field. Taken together, these accounts describe attempts to shift women’s positions through coaching entry, credential acquisition, ethical redefinition of player development, and explicit problematization of pay standards; at the same time, they show that such efforts are repeatedly constrained by the uneven recognition of women’s authority and by the informal organizational dynamics that can redirect “repositioning” toward coping, credential defense, or withdrawal. Capital conversion strategies and processes of female soccer players The respondents intimated that as female soccer players, they were not merely surviving within unequal conditions but were strategically converting their economic, cultural, and social capital to navigate their constrained environment effectively. This capital conversion represented more than passive adaptation—it was an active critique and negotiation of their positions within gendered power structures. Utilizing Bourdieu’s [ 3 ] capital theory, the following section outlines how female players’ strategic actions illustrate both capital interchangeability and structural limitations inherent in their experiences. Social capital conversion and network utilization The respondents indicated that they had strategically converted limited social capital into concrete opportunities, often by relying heavily on informal networks rather than formal pathways dominated by men. This strategic approach facilitated career advancements and essential access to otherwise inaccessible resources. Park illustrated this process by detailing how senior teammates helped her secure a professional team trial: At first, the club wasn’t interested in recruiting me. Fortunately, a senior teammate recommended me to the coach, and I got the chance for a trial. Without her recommendation, it would have been very difficult. This point highlights how a female player could leverage an informal relationship into a valuable opportunity, reflecting Bourdieu’s concept of converting social capital into economic capital. However, the need to rely on informal networks underscores systemic deficiencies in official recruitment channels. Jeong similarly leveraged her social connections to facilitate overseas career opportunities: With limited matches in Korea, playing abroad became crucial. However, finding teams independently was challenging. Fortunately, a senior player connected me to a foreign club. Jeong’s experience again illustrates the essential role of informal networks in overcoming institutional barriers. While informal networks are utilized by athletes of all genders, their role becomes particularly significant in women’s sports, where the lack of formal support structures renders social capital essential for overcoming institutional constraints. These examples underscore the dual nature of social capital conversion among female players: it demonstrates their agency and resourcefulness while also exposing systemic inequities reliant upon personal networks rather than structured opportunities. Economic capital conversion and income generation strategies Confronting low salaries and unstable contractual terms, these former female soccer players actively sought diverse avenues to convert their accumulated skills, reputation, and networks into tangible economic capital. These conversion strategies exemplify deliberate responses to economic instability and represent a broader negotiation with gendered economic disparities. Ko recounted transitioning from soccer to working as a caddie: My salary from playing soccer was too low to sustain my livelihood. Switching to work as a caddie provided much better financial stability. Weekend earnings from caddie work exceeded what I earned playing soccer. This point illustrates active economic capital conversion, translating soccer-related cultural capital into more sustainable economic forms outside of soccer, indicative of strategic adaptation rather than passive resignation. Choi further described creating economic opportunities via digital platforms: Many female players use YouTube to post game footage or training videos, which helps generate income through advertising. Traditional soccer alone doesn’t pay much, but digital platforms allow us to build personal brands and secure extra income. Choi’s statement highlights the innovative ways in which female athletes have been actively converting their cultural capital (skills, knowledge) into economic opportunities, demonstrating adaptability within restrictive structural conditions and opening new economic avenues independent from conventional pathways. These narratives collectively capture how female soccer players are actively engaging in creative economic capital conversion strategies, reflecting broader agency and autonomy within restrictive gendered sports structures. Cultural capital conversion and career transitions The participants indicated that female soccer players were strategically converting their cultural capital—technical expertise, tactical knowledge, and training experiences—into new career paths, actively countering limitations, such as inadequate match exposure and preparation for post-athletic careers. Oh explained how limited domestic playing opportunities prompted her overseas move: The lack of matches in Korea hindered my practical development, so playing abroad became a strategic necessity to improve skills and secure regular match experience. Oh’s decision represents active cultural capital conversion, leveraging international opportunities to accumulate broader experiences and enhance long-term career viability. Cha emphasized cultural capital conversion through coaching certifications: Securing coaching qualifications was crucial. If I only focused on playing, the future would be uncertain. Preparing in advance was essential. Cha’s proactive approach to cultural capital conversion highlights strategic foresight, translating athletic expertise into sustainable career opportunities. It also suggests potential structural impacts by promoting female leadership within soccer administration. These examples demonstrate how cultural capital is being dynamically reconfigured through strategic transitions, actively countering gender-based constraints. The female athlete cultural capital conversion discussed here reflects proactive repositioning within sports structures, which could potentially influence future leadership and broader institutional shifts in women’s soccer. Discussion In this study, we examined how Korean female soccer players acquire and strategically convert various forms of capital within the sports context. We also analyzed how this capital conversion occurs within gendered structural constraints. To interpret participants’ accounts with conceptual precision, we drew primarily on Bourdieu’s theory of capital and field, while using gender theory and intersectionality as complementary lenses for understanding how gendered constraint is produced and experienced within specific institutional settings. In the following discussion, we focus on each type of capital and explore the continuity of and potential rupture within gendered power structures, emphasizing the interplay between structure and agency. Integrating gendered power structures and capital theory The findings indicate that participants experienced capital accumulation and conversion as systematically constrained by gendered valuation within the football field, and they frequently interpreted these constraints in relation to male-centered institutional priorities and standards. Economic disparities, in particular, were deemed critical, reinforcing gender gaps within sports and impeding sustainable female participation. This result aligns with the results of previous studies, highlighting persistent economic inequalities, such as inadequate financial support and limited sponsorship opportunities, as well as systemic gender-based disparities within sports institutions [ 11 , 15 ]. The gendered nature of cultural capital also emerged clearly in our interviews. These former female athletes experienced discriminatory training conditions and evaluation criteria from the early stages of their careers, restricting their technical skills and competitive experiences. Participants’ narratives further suggested that cultural-capital accumulation was shaped by training content and by the uneven organization of competitive opportunities and visibility infrastructures within women’s football. We interpreted the participants’ efforts to subvert stereotypical gender roles—such as asserting feminine self-branding or adopting alternative leadership styles—from Butler’s perspective of performativity. Namely, rather than conforming to dominant masculine norms, the athletes shaped gender actions in strategic ways to gain visibility and agency within male-centered structures, highlighting how gender identity in sports can be actively negotiated rather than passively inherited. Our interpretation is supported by the findings of Grice et al. [ 51 ], who demonstrated that gender performativity in women’s football often reinforces symbolic violence when conformity to heteronormative femininity is expected and rewarded, limiting broader structural transformation [ 16 ]. Our results further contribute to the literature by highlighting how gender-biased evaluation standards substantially constrain female athletes’ acquisition and conversion of cultural capital, an area relatively underexplored in previous research [ 52 ]. Similarly, the results reflect that social capital accumulation among female athletes was closely tied to gendered power structures. The participants reported significant barriers to establishing and utilizing social networks within male-dominated sports organizations, reinforcing earlier studies on limited female representation and constrained networking opportunities [ 19 , 20 ]. Specifically, “homologous reproduction” was identified as a key mechanism restricting female athletes’ social capital accumulation [ 39 ]. By detailing these gender-specific constraints in social capital formation, we extend the theoretical discussions on gender inequality in sports. On interpreting the data in light of Bourdieu’s capital theory, we found that the gendered process of capital conversion transcended individual experiences, reflecting broader structural gender power relations operating within the sports field. Bourdieu’s emphasis on symbolic and strategic capital conversions proved particularly effective in analyzing female athletes’ proactive efforts to navigate and reconstruct limited capital resources [ 53 ]. Unlike prior research, we illustrate how female athletes strategically respond to gendered power structures through deliberate capital transformation, suggesting the importance of the integration of complementary capital and gender theories. Finally, intersectionality theory [ 36 ] proved most analytically useful when participants’ narratives explicitly linked gendered constraint to concrete institutional conditions that differentially shaped access to resources, opportunity structures, and support. For instance, participants’ accounts of sport participation as an uncertain or “low-return” pathway for girls, including family and community discourses that discouraged daughters’ entry into football, indicate that gendered valuation was not confined to the club setting but was reinforced through broader expectations about whose sporting careers are considered legitimate and sustainable. In addition, participants’ descriptions of constrained autonomy—such as coach-dominated decision-making around educational and career pathways—show that gendered constraint was often enacted through hierarchical relations that governed access to educational mobility and post-playing options. Here, intersectionality served to specify how gendered disadvantage was amplified along participants’ trajectories when institutional authority, resource concentration, and career gatekeeping intersected [ 54 , 55 ]. Moreover, our analysis situates these gendered inequalities within the institutional organization of women’s football in Korea, highlighting the situated and geopolitically uneven character of gendered power relations in sport governance and knowledge production [ 56 ]. Across participants’ accounts, structural constraints in women’s football were sustained through the confluence of field-specific hierarchies (including coach authority and organizational gatekeeping over educational and career pathways), unequal resource distribution, and gendered norms that normalized women’s subordinate positioning. Within this configuration, economic pressures, male-centric training norms, fragile and discontinuous competitive structures, and gendered media portrayals operated as mutually reinforcing dynamics that shaped opportunity structures and limited the durability of women’s football careers [ 20 , 36 , 54 , 55 ]. Agency within structural constraints: strategic responses and limitations of female athletes The responses of the former Korean female soccer players in this study illuminate the nuanced interplay between agency and structural constraints. Despite facing gender-specific structural barriers in their efforts to accumulate economic, cultural, and social capital, these women were actively engaged as strategic agents, employing diverse tactics to navigate and potentially transform these constraints. They mainly engaged in leveraging limited resources and seeking new opportunities for capital conversion, reflecting an ongoing negotiation between individual agency and structural limitations. The participants indicated that many athletes strategically utilized social media platforms and personal branding in response to economic capital deficiencies, which enabled them to partially navigate the exclusionary features of the sports media environment. Such actions illustrate proactive attempts to generate independent economic opportunities outside the conventional sports economy and offer new insights in the discussions on women’s economic capital in sports. However, such individual strategies, although initially effective in securing short-term visibility and economic relief, frequently fail to achieve sustainable structural change owing to persistent institutionalized gender biases. Culturally, the strategic efforts reported by these women to pursue opportunities in international leagues and acquire professional coaching certifications reflect proactive cultural capital mobilization as well as the limitations in Korea’s domestic sports milieu. Such actions demonstrate deliberate attempts to expand cultural capital into international and professional realms, adding to existing theoretical insights [ 38 ]. Nonetheless, these individual-level strategies often fall short of challenging broader gendered norms in domestic institutions, highlighting how symbolic violence [ 3 ] remains deeply embedded and perpetuates structural limitations despite athletes’ proactive efforts. Regarding social capital, these women reported actively cultivating informal networks that were helpful in addressing the limitations inherent within the formal, male-dominated sports organizations. These informal networks represented strategic responses to structural exclusions, providing alternative routes for social capital accumulation [ 20 ]. However, reliance on informal networks underscores the structural deficiencies of formal institutions, suggesting that without systemic interventions—such as institutional reforms and gender-sensitive policies—these informal strategies may inadvertently reinforce the status quo by shifting the responsibility for overcoming structural barriers onto individual female athletes. Unfortunately, despite these proactive strategies, the effectiveness of female athletes’ agency remains fundamentally constrained by structural realities. Persistently inadequate economic support and limited competitive opportunities significantly impede sustained agency development, aligning closely with established theoretical frameworks [ 57 , 58 ]. Therefore, our results underscore the need for comprehensive policy interventions and institutional changes to meaningfully transform existing gendered inequalities within sports systems and enhance female athletes’ agency. These structural constraints, particularly when sustained over time, suggest accumulating psychosocial burdens that can undermine athletes’ self-evaluation and future orientation, especially during career transition and post-playing planning. In participants’ accounts, constrained autonomy was repeatedly enacted through hierarchical brokerage in which coaches and senior actors concentrated information, recommendations, and placement decisions, thereby delimiting how athletes could plan educational mobility and post-playing trajectories. When educational and career pathways were organized through such gatekeeping relations, social capital often functioned less as an enabling network and more as a dependency structure, narrowing cultural-capital accumulation linked to schooling and limiting the conversion of sporting experience into durable post-playing options within football. Accordingly, capital conversion in women’s football should be discussed in relation to these institutional arrangements that stabilize or restrict decision-making autonomy and transition opportunities, rather than being reduced to distributive inequalities alone. Limitations of capital conversion processes and the persistence of gendered power structures We also considered whether the capital conversion strategies detailed by these former female athletes could fundamentally alter existing gendered power structures within sports or remain limited within these unequal contexts. The participants reported employing various strategies, including personal branding via social media, international league participation, and acquiring coaching certifications, demonstrating proactive attempts to overcome structural barriers. While these individual strategies may temporarily challenge and enhance the visibility of women’s sports [ 53 ], their long-term effectiveness in fundamentally altering entrenched gendered inequalities requires further critical reflection. These former athletes demonstrated considerable creativity and resilience in their efforts to convert cultural and social capital into economic capital but were consistently undermined by structural gender biases not typically faced by male athletes. Scholarship on gendered career conversion in football suggests that men’s competitive credentials are more readily recognized and routinized into coaching, media, and administrative opportunities through established networks and institutional pathways, whereas women’s post-playing opportunities tend to remain narrower, more contingent, and more frequently questioned in terms of technical authority and leadership legitimacy [ 14 , 20 ]. In this study, participants’ accounts of restricted post-retirement routes within football, the need to defend legitimacy through credential acquisition, and the instability of authority after role transition can be interpreted as empirical expressions of these broader gendered opportunity structures. In contexts where symbolic violence is deeply entrenched, individual resilience may paradoxically reinforce structural hierarchies by rendering collective reform less urgent. Additionally, women’s reliance on self-branding and social media visibility strategies, although initially empowering, often impose additional burdens conforming to traditional femininity standards—an expectation rarely faced by their male counterparts. From the perspective of symbolic violence [ 3 ], such individualized strategies may operate as pragmatic adaptive practices within unequal conditions, enabling survival and partial mobility while leaving dominant criteria of valuation and recognition substantially intact. In this sense, resilience can be publicly celebrated as “progress” even when the organizational conditions that reproduce unequal conversion opportunities remain largely unchanged. Although such strategies increase visibility and economic independence, their impact remains constrained by deeply ingrained male-centric organizational and administrative frameworks. Opportunities to substantially expand capital and secure structural positions remain limited for female athletes [ 14 , 20 ]. The achievements realized through international exposure or coaching certifications often function as exceptional cases rather than structural transformations, potentially framing women’s successes as individualized narratives disconnected from broader systemic inequalities [ 59 ]. Participants’ accounts of restricted post-retirement pathways within football, especially into coaching or administrative roles with meaningful authority, underscore how “transition” itself becomes a context where unequal conversion opportunities are reproduced through institutional scarcity and informal gatekeeping. Thus, individual accomplishments, although meaningful, often fail to instigate broader structural change, inadvertently reinforcing the very inequalities they aim to disrupt. Interpreted through symbolic violence, these findings suggest that the burden of “overcoming” gendered inequality is frequently individualized—through self-branding, credential accumulation, and informal networking—while the organizational conditions that produce unequal valuation remain comparatively stable. Intersectionality further sharpens this interpretation by foregrounding how gendered disadvantage is intensified when hierarchical authority, resource concentration, and legitimacy judgments converge within particular institutional settings [ 54 , 55 ]. Our findings align with those of Grice et al. [ 51 ], who revealed how English female footballers internalize gendered norms and limitations as personal expectations, reproducing symbolic violence through everyday interactions and self-regulation. Such symbolic violence operates subtly, perpetuating the gendered status quo within sports institutions and undermining prospects for meaningful structural transformation [ 51 , 53 ]. Therefore, to achieve meaningful structural changes, individual agency must be complemented by systemic and institutional support. In this dataset, constraints were repeatedly narrated through limited and unequal remuneration, fragile competitive infrastructures, coach-dominated decision-making over educational and career pathways, and the scarcity of stable post-retirement routes with recognized authority; accordingly, structural interventions are most plausible when linked to these specific conditions. Specifically, policy interventions designed to structurally embed female athletes within sports governance, promote gender-sensitive resource allocation, and formalize inclusive participation channels are essential; in practical terms, this implies strengthening baseline employment and team-continuity conditions, expanding routinized competitive opportunities that secure match-based development and evaluative visibility, formalizing transparent procedures that limit discretionary brokerage over education and career placement, and building structured transition pathways into coaching and administration with recognized authority. Without these systemic measures, the individual strategies employed by female athletes risk becoming mere symbolic gestures rather than steps toward comprehensive structural reform. Consequently, addressing gender inequalities in sports requires a shift from individual empowerment towards improving structurally embedded opportunities. Only through such comprehensive institutional reforms, involving policy-level changes, can female athletes’ efforts translate effectively into enduring transformations of the gendered power structures within sports [ 14 , 19 , 20 ]. Despite the depth and richness of the findings, this study has some limitations that must be acknowledged. First, the study employed a qualitative case study design with a purposively selected, relatively small sample of retired Korean female soccer players. While this design enabled in-depth exploration, it limits the generalizability of the findings to other populations or contexts. Second, the exclusive focus on retired female athletes may not capture the current realities and perspectives of active players, particularly regarding recent changes in policy or public perception. Third, the study did not include male participants, restricting our ability to make gender-based comparative claims. These limitations should be considered when interpreting the results and assessing their broader applicability. Conclusions We explored how structural inequalities in sports limit capital accumulation and shape the psychological well-being and mental health outcomes of female athletes. We examined the multifaceted structural barriers faced by Korean female soccer players in acquiring and converting economic, cultural, and social capital within the gendered context of sports as well as their responses to these constraints. The findings reveal that the gendered sports environment presents substantial limitations to female athletes’ capital accumulation and conversion, including insufficient economic capital, restricted access to cultural capital, and exclusion from influential social networks. First, structural inequalities in economic capital were consistently observed from youth development through to professional levels. The former female players reported significantly lower financial support and unstable contractual conditions than their male counterparts, resulting in a fragile foundation for athletic continuity. These conditions are fundamental threats to the sustainability of women’s soccer in Korea. Second, in the process of accumulating cultural capital, these female players encountered explicit gendered barriers. Their access to technical and tactical development was structurally limited owing to male-centered evaluation standards and discriminatory training practices. These barriers constrained their opportunities for performance enhancement and long-term professional growth. Third, with regard to social capital, these players often relied on informal and limited networks to secure career opportunities towing to the lack of formal support structures. As a result, their autonomy in career planning and development was significantly restricted, reflecting the persistent dominance of male-centered power dynamics within sports organizations. Despite these challenges, these women were not passive victims but rather strategic agents who actively engaged in capital conversion and utilization within constrained circumstances. They creatively leveraged limited resources by building personal brands through social media, seeking opportunities abroad to expand their cultural capital, and obtaining coaching certifications to pursue alternative careers. However, these individualized strategies—although creative and resilient—risk being reduced to temporary, individualized responses that do not fundamentally change structural inequalities. In some cases, they may inadvertently reinforce existing gendered power structures through the mechanism of symbolic violence. In our study, we move beyond interpreting capital acquisition and conversion as matters of individual choice or success. Instead, we situate these processes within a broader sociological framework of structural inequality and agentive resistance. The strategic conversions of capital and the emergence of agency are interpreted mainly through Bourdieu’s capital theory and gender theory. Intersectionality serves as an auxiliary lens to contextualize how gender intersects with class and other social dimensions, enabling a layered understanding of female athletes’ experiences. The theoretical integration extends the analysis by demonstrating how certain individual strategies may inadvertently legitimize or reproduce structural oppression under the guise of empowerment. In sum, we provide scholarly significance by applying Bourdieu’s capital theory in conjunction with gender and intersectionality frameworks to critically examine inequality in women’s sports. By illustrating the interplay between structural constraints and athletes’ strategic responses, we offer a nuanced understanding of how gendered inequalities persist in sports, underscoring the need for policy-level reforms to complement individual agency. Furthermore, by contextualizing these dynamics within Korea’s sociocultural realities, we highlight the local specificity and broader applicability of structural gender inequalities in sport. To advance equity and sustainability in women’s sports, implementing structural reforms is imperative, including expanded policy support to ensure the economic viability of female athletes and greater inclusion of women in sports governance and leadership. Such initiatives are essential for establishing the institutional foundations that can help achieve gender equity and long-term development in women’s sport. These reforms are vital for ensuring institutional justice and for safeguarding the psychological well-being and mental health of female athletes. In alignment with the study’s objectives, our findings answer the three guiding research questions. First, Korean female soccer players were found to accumulate and convert economic, cultural, and social capital through informal networks, digital self-branding, and strategic career planning—although these processes were shaped and constrained by structural gender inequalities. Second, the participants adopted various agentic responses, including seeking international opportunities, obtaining coaching certifications, and reconfiguring gender roles through performative strategies. Third, although these efforts reflect meaningful individual agency, their capacity to transform long-standing gendered power relations remains limited without systemic intervention. Taken together, the findings underscore that capital conversion in women’s sports unfolds within, and is often restricted by, entrenched structural inequalities—reinforcing the need for comprehensive institutional reform alongside athlete-led strategies. Acknowledgements Not applicable. Authors’ contributions The authors confirm their contributions to the paper as follows: Study design: Hyunkyun Ahn; conceptualization: Hyunkyun Ahn; study conduct: Hyunkyun Ahn, Na-Young Choi; data collection: Hyunkyun Ahn, Na-Young Choi; data analysis: Hyunkyun Ahn, Na-Young Choi; data interpretation: Hyunkyun Ahn, Na-Young Choi; drafting the manuscript: Hyunkyun Ahn, Na-Young Choi; revising manuscript content: Hyunkyun Ahn, Na-Young Choi. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. Funding This research received no external funding. Data availability The qualitative datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study (e.g., interview transcripts) are not publicly available owing to participant confidentiality and the potential risk of re-identification. De-identified excerpts supporting the findings are included within this published article. Additional de-identified materials may be available from the corresponding author on reasonable request, subject to ethical and legal restrictions. Declarations Ethics approval and consent to participate All methods were carried out in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations. This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at Jeju National University, Jeju, Korea (JJNU-IRB-2025-033) and conformed to the standards set by the latest revision of the Declaration of Helsinki. Written informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to participation. Consent for publication Not applicable. 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Data Availability Statement The qualitative datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study (e.g., interview transcripts) are not publicly available owing to participant confidentiality and the potential risk of re-identification. De-identified excerpts supporting the findings are included within this published article. Additional de-identified materials may be available from the corresponding author on reasonable request, subject to ethical and legal restrictions. 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