The webinar, attended by over 100 participants from Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Americas, underscored the global recognition of sport trafficking as a pressing issue. Speakers included high-profile representatives from international organisations such as FIFA, CAF, the United Nations, and prominent academic institutions, as survivor testimonies added a powerful human dimension to the discussions.

At the heart of the transformative event was the unveiling of the Global Thematic Report on Sport Trafficking, a comprehensive document meticulously designed to empower governments and organisations to confront the problem. By leveraging evidence-based analysis derived from the report, Mission 89 aims to provide insightful perspectives on the issue and offer action-oriented policy recommendations to drive meaningful change.

Delivering his keynote address, Prof. Dr. Michel Veuthey, Ambassador of the Sovereign Order of Malta stated, “How can we better prevent and combat human trafficking? We need a strong international legal framework, increased public awareness, and active engagement from law enforcement, judges and magistrates, researchers and academic institutions, the media, and the business community.”

Speakers at the webinar assessed policy gaps in United Nations conventions, African Union frameworks, and sports regulations, as well as weaknesses in agent regulations and sports academy licensing practices, and advocated for cross-border collaborations and support systems for vulnerable athletes.

Dr. Decius Hikabwa Chipande, Head of the African Union Sport Council (AUSC) Secrétariat: “Sports serves as a powerful vehicle for economic progress but is also exploited for other purposes. African Union is strongly committed to combat trafficking in the world of sports. In terms of region, on the African continent, irregular migration is a continental phenomenon affecting all african countries.”   

For more insights on the research findings, policy gaps and solutions, download the webinar report here. Mission 89 NFN Webinar Report

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The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is the standard-bearer for all issues pertaining to the rights of children especially in countries where the legally-binding agreement has been ratified.  Article 19 UNCRC explicitly requires children to be protected from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse. Despite this, scholars such as Donnelly (2008) argue that currently, children remain the major class of persons who have enjoyed almost no increase in human rights in general, or in sport.

Football is a prime example of this. The lure of the Big 5 European leagues has increasingly led to the migration of young footballers from developing countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa. For every young footballer who “makes it” in Europe, there are a great number who not only fail to make the grade, but often fall into the wrong hands, and are subsequently left abroad and desolate.

Lionel Messi, arguably the most talented footballer of his generation, left Argentina for Barcelona at the tender age of 13 and reached super-stardom within a few years. In contrast, it is estimated that 15,000 young players are moved out of West Africa every year on false pretenses of fame in European football, but due to the lack of monitoring the number could be much larger in actuality (Poli, 2010). These young African footballers often end up being exploited by unscrupulous traffickers, ending up worse off than they were when they left their home countries.

In order for state actors, governing bodies and NGOs to counteract this phenomenon, it is critical that the push and pull factors of a young footballer’s decision to leave home in search of a football career in Europe is well investigated and understood.

Bogus agents and “talent scouts”

Recently, FIFPro warned footballers about criminals posing as player agents on LinkedIn. Several players informed FIFPro about their experiences with a person named Steve Mac Hughes who they say deceived them by promising trials or contracts with clubs in the United Kingdom and Asia. In short, this person approached them via LinkedIn, said that a club was interested and that he would arrange a trial or a contract if the player first signed with him and paid a fee. None of the players spoke with or saw the person; they communicated with the “agent” via LinkedIn and WhatsApp. After they sent the money through a Western Union account, the person broke off all contact. This phenomenon is particularly widespread in the many “football factories” all across the African and South American continents.

Money talks

Research conducted by Prof. James Esson (2015:521) of Loughborough University on the migration of young African footballers to Europe found that many of them believed that a career in professional football and migration to a league outside of Africa is a realistic career-decision in order to lift an individual and therefore vicariously their family out of poverty. This is seen as a hugely significant factor that lures impoverished and often desperate young footballers into migrating to Europe by any means necessary, playing into the exploitative hands of traffickers and fraudulent agents.

Easy as that

The global image of successful athletes, who mostly ply their trade overseas, creates a desire among the youth to also elevate their standards as well as whet their hopes and appetite for “success”. Hence, globalised societies and the immense influence of social media have created the illusion that success in football or sports in general is a given, as long as an individual has talent and the right work ethic.

For example, Poli (2006) conducted a survey with the Ivorian Under-17 national team, where 18 of the 23 players he asked said that, once in Europe, finding a professional club to play for would be easy. Such optimism was not shared by their team’s trainer who felt that only three or four of them had the requisite talent to breakthrough in Europe. For many talented young boys and girls around the world, any career pathway that offers hope for breaking out of poverty is worth the attempt.

“Cultural placement”

‘Cultural placement’ is a reciprocal arrangement where a young person leaves his immediate family and is placed in the care of an individual or household, with their labour offered in exchange for education and/ or training, as well as his means of subsistence. For instance in Benin, there exists a local tradition of “vidomegon,” where village children work as servants to wealthy urban families in return for education and training. This often extends to families sending their children to acquaintances who are not well-known in Europe, in the hope that their children have better life chances in the “western world” (Manzo, 2005). False promises of reciprocity and return are an increasingly common theme in the migration of young footballers from developing nations into Europe.

There is certainly some evidence to argue that societies where “cultural placement” is standard practice seem to be susceptible to football migration.

References:

1. Donnelly, P. (2008). Sport and human rights. Sport in Society, 11(4), 381-394.
2. James Esson (2015) Better Off at Home? Rethinking Responses to Trafficked West African Footballers in Europe, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 41:3, 512-530, DOI: 10.1080/1369183X.2014.927733
3. Manzo, K. (2005). Exploiting West Africa’s children: trafficking, slavery and uneven development. Area, 37(4), 393–401.doi:10.1111/j.1475-4762.2005.00644.x
4. Poli, R. (2010). Understanding globalization through football: The new international division of labour, migratory channels and transnational trade circuits. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 45(4), 491-506.
5. Taylor, M. (2006). Global players? Football, migration and globalization, c. 1930-2000. Historical social research, 31(1), 7-30.
6. Poli, R. (2006). Migrations and trade of African football players: historic, geographical and cultural aspects. Africa Spectrum, 393-414.

The writer, John Luke Chua, is a Graduate Research Assistant at Mission 89.

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The progress shown by African national teams in international competitions since the 1990s as well as the outstanding careers of African football icons such as Didier Drogba, Michael Essien and Nwankwo Kanu, to name a few, has fueled the desire of thousands of young West Africans to try to make it to “the top”.

While some footballers have been able to follow in their more famous predecessors’ footsteps, a disturbing by-product of this fascination with Europe’s football leagues has also been on the rise. This worrying phenomenon is known as “football trafficking” – for a more comprehensive definition of the term, see Esson and Drywood (2018).

The growth of African football has not gone unobserved. This has triggered a reaction, some clubs have been looking out for younger and younger “raw” talents to be “purchased” at a low cost, with the hope of turning them into established players to be sold at a higher price thus generating a big profit. On the other hand, the number of aspiring footballers craving to pursue a professional career in European football has also dramatically increased. Unfortunately, this demand and supply situation has created thriving grounds for exploitation of young talent.

Alarmed by the “race to young talent”, national and international institutions and sports governing bodies have taken restrictive measures. For example, FIFA introduced Article 19 of its Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players, which states that international transfers of players are only permitted if the player is over the age of 18, unless their parents move to the country in which the new club is located for reasons unrelated to football, the player is aged at least 16 and the transfer happens within the European Union or the player lives no further than 50km from a national border and the club with which the player wishes to be registered in the neighbouring association is also within 50km of that border.

The goal of Article 19 is to put a limit to the frequent cases of fraud and abandonment linked with the movement of underage players as outlined in the “10 step guide to football trafficking” (Esson 2015).

Playing football at the best possible stage – Europe – per se is not the only motivation drawing large numbers of would-be footballers from the Global South. Research conducted on over 100 underage Ghanaian footballers revealed that they viewed migrating to a well-paid European league, where a player would get the maximum return on their ability, as the embodiment of self-reliance and entrepreneurialism (Esson and Drywood: 2018).

In other words, football is seen as a way of improving families’ social and economic status, a situation that is mostly perceived as impossible to achieve by staying in the country of origin.

Global South to North migration does not only pertain to football, although research in other sports is lacking.

With the aim to finding a way to balance two fundamental principles of the Convention on the Right of the Child, i.e adherence to the best interests of the child and the child’s right to participate in decisions regarding their future, further research into the migration of youth related to sports is needed as well raising the awareness of all the players involved, two activities in which Mission 89 has always been fully engaged in order to tackle the issue of the exploitation of young athletes.

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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 it thought Chelsea may have transgressed FIFA regulations. The Guardian reports that the TMS investigation has forwarded  its findings to the disciplinary committee, “which is searching for further examples in a forensic look at the club’s academy”.

Read the full report in The Guardian by clicking on this link.

Chelsea FC has denied the allegations and claims to comply with all FIFA statutes and regulations when recruiting players.

Mission 89 states that this report reinforces the need for watertight compliance by professional football clubs with FIFA regulations that govern the movement of players under the age of 18 years old.

Mission 89 calls for strict enforcement of existing regulations by governing bodies and states that professional clubs and football’s governing bodies must place the broader welfare of minors above short-term recruiting goals.

Mission 89 notes that Bertrand Traoré, the under-age player from Burkina Faso whose status at Chelsea FC was brought to the attention of FIFA’s TMS, has since left the club and is now signed with Olympique Lyonnais in France.

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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 that, when combined, create different outcomes. Money is a driving factor.

Young players want to improve the economic situation for themselves and their families and promises – many of them false – are seen as a circuit breaker.

Agents and academies want a piece of the money merry-go-round that revolves around professional football, especially in Europe and Asia.

Clubs at every level don’t want to miss out on the next big thing – whether for success on the field or success in making money selling players to other clubs.

Article 19 of FIFA’s regulations on the status and transfer of players states that international transfers of players are only permitted if the player is over the age of 18, yet loopholes and grey areas allow rules to be exploited or ignored.

Mission 89’s Matthew Hall was interviewed on Football Nation Radio to discuss the organization’s work in challenging these issues and how it plans to advocate, educate, and change the game.

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A report from the BBC explains how young players as young as 14 years old ended up in Laos – far from the bright lights of the UEFA Champions League. The case is an obvious example of how FIFA’s Article 19, which in part states that, “international transfers of players are only permitted if the player is over the age of 18.” is often ignored and how fake academies exploit young players and their families.

The report explains how underage boys traveled from Liberia to Laos with the promise of a professional contract with one of the country’s top clubs, Champasak United. One boy alleged that his teammates had not received contracts to play for the club. The conditions for the players were described as “like slave work”.

The Laotian club denied any wrongdoing and after pressure from FIFA and FIFPro, the international football player’s union, released 17 teenagers from the original party. Demonstrating the complexity underlying many trafficking issues, six minors chose to remain in Laos.

Read and watch the BBC report by clicking here.

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In the south of Kansas City on a corner of 43rd Avenue there is an Italian restaurant called Cupini’s. Eddie Cupini and his father, Franco, have dedicated nearly 15 years to serving the best pasta in town – “Just like my mom used to make,” says Franco – and earning a few awards along the way. But soon they will be leaving behind the restaurant and the life they have built in America.

Eddie’s 10-year-old son, Alessandro, has signed up to Roma’s esteemed academy. Alessandro is something of a social media sensation with more than 40,000 followers on Instagram and a dedicated YouTube channel showcasing his prodigious talent, all managed by his father. He even has a nickname: The Wolf. “A lion and a tiger are mean but you can’t take a wolf to the circus,” Eddie explains.

Read the full story by clicking here.

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