In the second part of our interview with photographer Jason Andrew on his “Black Diamonds” project, he reveals some of the personal struggles the players went through and the complex nature of the international movement of young players – especially from regions of the world experiencing economic challenges. The “Black Diamonds” project began in 2010 […]
Allegations against Chelsea Football Club that it has broken FIFA rules by allegedly signing 25 foreign players under the age of 18 must be taken seriously, according to Mission 89. The report, published in The Guardian, reveals an investigation carried out by the compliance unit of FIFA’s transfer matching system flagged 25 player cases in which […]
Photographer Jason Andrew grew up in California, USA, and taught at an elementary school for four years before studying photography. He has since been published in Time, the Financial Times, the New Yorker, and the British Journal of Photography, among others. In 2010, Andrew traveled to Istanbul in Turkey where he met aspiring footballers from […]
The Guardian announced Manchester United’s Juan Mata is the newspaper’s 2017 Footballer of the Year – an award that Mission 89 considers an excellent choice. Mata made news in 2017 for his work with the Common Goal project that was launched in August, 2017. Mata and a growing number of footballers around the world donate 1% […]
Thank you for your support in 2017 and we look forward to an exciting and productive 2018.
Football has a dirty little secret: the movement of players from Africa to Europe and Asia. It is a complex issue that involves exploitation of young athletes and at its worst examples is defined as human trafficking. Just like a typical football match there are many forces in play and many individuals with specific roles […]
An increasing number of young, talented footballers are coming to Europe from Africa. They dream of a career in European sport. The professional football industry is competitive and can be ruthless. Players who have traveled from Africa are often discarded by clubs and agents and left to fend for themselves with no legal documentation. Without […]
Slavery exists today. A report from CNN has exposed a modern day slave trade in Libya where migrants from Nigeria, Niger, Mali, and other African countries are sold as products. Manchester United’s Paul Pogba used his goal celebration in a return-from-injury Premier League game against Newcastle United in October to highlight the issue. After scoring […]
A common misconception is that the exploitation of young footballers is a problem solely connected to the big leagues of Europe. The reality is that African teenagers are sold dreams of playing professional football all over the world. A report from the BBC explains how young players as young as 14 years old ended up […]
It is a story replicated at alarmingly high rates in Africa and Europe: upcoming footballers, mostly in their teens, are lured to Europe under the guise of a career in the continent’s top football leagues. Many of these teens and their families go to great lengths to find huge sums of money, in the region […]