The hunger in Sulley’s eyes had nothing to do with football. He said he not eaten that day. His was a frame which would have needed plenty of fuel. He was tall, at least 6 foot 2 inches, and he had the sort of rangy legs and arms which made it easy to imagine him striding around the midfield, bossing and barging. He looked a bit like Yaya Touré, the captain of Manchester City and Ivory Coast. Apt. ‘Yaya is my favourite player,’ he said. ‘He plays so easily, like me.’
Sulley was 21 and hailed from Bobo-Dioulasso, the second-largest city in Burkina Faso. He had ended up in Paris by way of Portugal and Belgium. It was a journey which began when he was scouted at 17 by an agent who had claimed he could be a big star. He had just the right club – in the Portuguese second division – where Sulley could begin his ascent. It ended predictably. There was no offer of a professional contract. The agent took his passport, not that Sulley had money to return home. He slept on friends’ floors and had to borrow money.
Sulley’s ambition had not been superstardom. He didn’t speak of being the next Yaya. He just wanted to earn ‘a good salary playing ball’ in order to send money back home to his uncle, who had raised him after his father died when he was six. He had a brother and sister. ‘Both are older than me but I want to earn for them. My uncle was not rich at all. He didn’t have money for a lot of things. It wasn’t easy. In the school holidays I would work in a clothes shop with my brother for money. I wanted to help them, too.’
He had started playing football at the age of nine, in the street with the other kids. He pretended he was Ronaldinho, the Brazil star. ‘Playing football was great for me. It relaxed me. I could have many, many worries but when I played I forgot them all. It is still like that now, even if I have worries about food and money and a place to stay.’
In Bobo-Dioulasso, Sulley had stood out. He had joined an academy after leaving junior school and his strength, close control and assured passing had brought him to the attention of scouts and agents. It was no mean feat to shine in a city renowned for producing football talent, such as Charles Kaboré, the powerful midfielder who played more than 120 times for Marseille and in 2013 transferred to Kuban Krasnodar of the Russian league. He also played almost 50 times for the Burkina Faso national team. Then there was Bertrand Traoré, who Chelsea signed from Auxerre, the French club, and then loaned to Vitesse Arnhem in Holland. Sulley had gone to school with Traoré. ‘We played together from the age of ten, at school and in the street,’ he said. ‘We were in the same class at school. He went to the UK after he left high school, I think. I saw him in June. His brother lives in Paris.’
‘Could he help you get a club?’ I asked.
‘I’ve not spoken to him about getting a club. But he is my friend. He plays in Holland now. He was a different player to me, so I cannot say whether he was better. He was an attacker.’
Traoré was luckier. He was spotted by a reputable agent, Sulley was not; he went to the Portuguese second division team and started off playing in the under-19s. ‘I was doing well and I soon moved up to play with the seniors,’ he said. ‘I felt so motivated. It was my dream and I think I should have been able to play in the first division.’
The club provided an apartment and all of his meals. He was even able to send home some money – ‘three times’ – from the little he did earn. ‘It was rare we got paid,’ he said. ‘I spoke to some of the senior players and they had not been paid for three months.’
It was the beginning of the end. Before Sulley could make an impression, the club suffered financial problems and withdrew funding for the youth teams. It left Sulley without a club. According to Sulley, the agent, aware that it would have been too much work to find him a new club, showed his true character. He told him to sign on for benefits and pocketed the money himself. When it ran out, Sulley never saw him again. He told me his name but had no telephone number or email address. He was not listed as a Fifa licensed agent.
A friend from Senegal, who had been on trial at the Portuguese club but was not taken on, suggested he try his luck with a club in Belgium he was playing for. But they would not even offer him a trial so he went to Paris to join the thousands of other young footballers wandering the streets. ‘I heard about Foot Solidaire. I was told they could help,’ Sulley said.
He spent his days searching for a club. ‘It’s my job,’ he laughed. ‘It’s what I do. I get up, I look on the internet and if the team is close by I go there. That was what I was doing before I came here to see you. I have been out all day, looking and searching.’
Paris’s roads lead nowhere. Sulley, one day, will run out of clubs. ‘I have no real job,’ he said. ‘I have no money.’ He told me he lived in Paris’s northern suburbs, sleeping on the sofa at a friend’s apartment. The friend had a wife and five children. He could not stay there for ever. ‘But sometimes I can eat with him,’ he said. ‘Maybe I will eat tonight.’