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Football's Illegal Trade in Children

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Photo Courtesy of Eduardo Fonseca Arraes via Flickr.

Football, the world's most popular sport with 3.5 billion fans, is steadily rising in viewership as the industry's worth is growing by millions. This heightened popularity is accompanied by the rise of big dreams amongst Africa's youth of becoming the next Didier Drogba or Michael Essien, Africa's football superstars who play for European club teams. For many of these youths – and their families – football stardom represents a golden ticket out of poverty that bypasses the shoddy education system. For this, families are willing to risk everything to see their sons play professionally and provide for the family.

The past decade has seen the emergence of a new form of human trafficking – one for young boys with an aptitude for football and exploitable dreams of stardom. As with any large profitable enterprise, unsavory characters find ways to exploit the system and make a sizable profit. While "soccer trafficking" may sound bizarre or less threatening than more prevalent forms of trafficking (labor, sex, drug), it is just as exploitative, points to gaps in governance, and exemplifies the security issues posed by extreme poverty.

Football Academies and a System of Exploitation

Globally, young players who believe they have the potential to go professional attend soccer academies, which provide a mix of traditional or vocational education and rigorous training. Often these academies are linked to bigger clubs that use the aspiring athletes for their own teams. Legitimate academies are required to register with the local government or football association to ensure the minors are protected and activities are legal.

While these legitimate academies can provide a pathway to professional football, the rates of success are about 1 percent. In West Africa, the problem is that illegitimate academies are popping up everywhere as more and more locals realize how profitable running an academy can be. In Accra, Ghana alone, there are 500 illegal academies in operation. These schools are run by coaches and "scouts" who claim to be former professionals, but have no evidence of their credentials. Operated on the side of the road, without proper equipment or facilities, young boys flock to the academies for the promise of a brighter future. Coaches pull the boys out of school and extort fees from their families, which they are often unable to pay without making some sort of sacrifice. One such operation is the Jay Gyemie Academe in Accra run by Isaac Aloti, who claims to be a training expert. One of his students, 12 year old Daniel Vijo, believes Aloti will be able to secure him a trial in France. His family moved to Accra and took him out of school because they also have faith in the uncredible academy. This is the lowest level of extortion, and while these African academies are not trafficking boys, they are contributing to a cycle of poverty by luring youths away from an education with promises of fame. These boys' families are so poor that they are willing to risk everything on a child who is told he has potential. However, years wasted on the field and away from school serve to disadvantage these young boys in the long run.

Agents and middlemen look to further exploit this system by telling boys that they have been "picked up" by a team in Europe, Asia, or the Middle East. If parents can only pay the cost of travel, the agent can secure a deal to have a trial. Parents even sell their homes and borrow exorbitant amounts of money to pay the fees. However, the travel provided is often illegal, and dangerous. Once the boys arrive, they find themselves abandoned. With no scheduled trial, no money, and nowhere to stay, these boys end up on the streets and are absorbed into the population of African immigrants targeted by conservative nativist groups and anti-immigration policies. Bernard Bass, a 17 year old from Guinea-Bissau, is no exception to this narrative. Having been promised a trial with French team Metz, his mother sold their home and put his siblings to work to pay for his two week journey by boat. When he arrived in France, the team had no knowledge of him and now he lives on a friend's floor in the Clichy-sous-Bois ghetto of Paris.

The highest level of exploitation, which has been referred to as modern slavery, has recently been highlighted in the news due to a discovery this year that boys are being trafficked to Asian soccer academies. IDSEA Champasak Asia African Football Academy, an unregistered academy, had trafficked 23 minors from West Africa to train for Champasak United, a top team in Laos. The boys were forced to sign contracts that promised salaries and living accommodations, but the boys claim they were never paid, slept on the floor, and were given little to eat. The academy hoped to make a profit by training the boys at a low cost and selling them to top teams when they were old enough.

Institutional Failures

This system of exploitation is allowed to exist because of poor governance on the parts of both African governments and FIFA. Fluid borders and endemic corruption make it easy for agents to smuggle boys out of Africa, ignoring FIFA's restrictions regarding the transfer of minors. Any club or academy that wants to bring a foreign player to train must meet certain criteria for an International Transfer Certificate, which many of the smuggled players do not fulfill. In addition, there are restrictions against minors playing in professional league games which have been broken in the case of Laos.

In order to combat the illegal and dangerous ways boys are being smuggled out of Africa, FIFA recently lowered the age limit for international transfers from 12 years old to 10 in the hopes that more boys would qualify for transfer certificates and be under the protection of FIFA. This, however, raises the possibility that to continue avoiding the restrictions on transfers, agents will start seeking out younger and younger players. Illegal academies aren't the only ones bypassing FIFA's transfer rules; prominent academies in Europe often ignore the regulations in an effort to secure talented young players. FC Barcelona's training academy, La Masia, recently came under fire for ignoring the transfer regulations, but faced minor consequences.

Are there Viable Solutions?

In the cases of Laos and La Masia, profiters bypassed the rules of the system, putting boys in danger and oftentimes violating the terms laid out in the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child. In these situations, FIFA can and needs to step in to ensure that minors are protected by dispensing harsher punishments for such offences.

While stricter FIFA regulations can work to eradicate the transfer of underage boys to teams violating the rules, this is only a small fraction of the problem. What happens to the boys who are being exploited for money by fake agents? What about those left to their own devices in foreign countries with no money to survive or return home? One organization, Culture Foot Solidaire, run by former Cameroonian football player Jean-Claude Mbvoumin, works towards locating and aiding the victims of this kind of trafficking. The charity's primary goal is to return trafficked boys home. For others, the charity tries to educate them on the difficulty of success as a professional soccer player, in the hopes that fewer families will fall prey to false promises.

Organizations such as Culture Foot Solidaire are doing tremendous work to help the victims of football trafficking, but the root of the problem still needs to be addressed. FIFA and the larger football community need to acknowledge that they created a system in which young players are lucrative commodities to be bought, sold, and shipped around the world for a profit, with Africans in high demand from European leagues because of their success on the field.

While trafficking as an enterprise can be difficult to combat, FIFA and African governments can act to help alleviate the conditions which drive young boys to these academies and fake scouts. In conjunction with NGO's like Culture Foot Solidaire, governments and local football associations can work to educate people on the system of exploitation that exists and warn them against putting hope and meager fortunes into a false promise. FIFA and local football associations must work to establish more legitimate programs and teams within Africa, so youngsters are less tempted to pursue their dreams outside of the continent. But while these actions can be helpful, this system of trafficking will continue to exist as long as there is widespread poverty. People set up these academies as a way to make a living, and to young footballers and their families, the sport represents a ticket out of poverty to a life they might not have thought otherwise possible.

About the Author

Angeline Apostolou


Africa Program

The Africa Program works to address the most critical issues facing Africa and US-Africa relations, build mutually beneficial US-Africa relations, and enhance knowledge and understanding about Africa in the United States. The Program achieves its mission through in-depth research and analyses, public discussion, working groups, and briefings that bring together policymakers, practitioners, and subject matter experts to analyze and offer practical options for tackling key challenges in Africa and in US-Africa relations.    Read more