Glossary and Cast of Characters
Accra:
Capital city of Ghana, where I visited to understand the social and football culture and work undercover for Scout Network.
Phaedra Al-Majid:
‘Fifa whistleblower’ who revealed that Qatar had paid Fifa members to vote for them to host the 2022 World Cup. Heavily criticised the Aspire Dreams programme.
Amane:
Trafficked from Ivory Coast to Europe via a migrant boat at the age of 16. Poster boy for Foot Solidaire.
Anti-Slavery International:
Charity which doubted that players would be trafficked for football purposes only.
Arsenal:
Found to have invested in Beveren, the Belgian club which fielded players from the Ivory Coast academy, ASEC Mimosas.
Article 19:
Fifa’s law to protect under-18s, written in 2003. No player under the age of 18 should be subject to an international transfer. There were three exceptions to the rule: the player’s parent(s) moves to the country for reasons not linked to football; the transfer takes place within the territory of the European Union or European Economic Area; the player lives no further than 50 kilometres from a national border and the club with which the player wishes to be registered in the neighbouring association is also within 50 kilometres of that border.
ASEC Mimosas:
Academy in Ivory Coast which produced players including Yaya and Kolo Touré. Were a feeder club for Beveren, a Belgium club. BBC Newsnight revealed Arsenal had invested in Beveren in 2001. It also found Arsène Wenger was an investor in ASEC. Arsenal bought Kolo Touré from Beveren.
Aspire Academy:
Futuristic Olympic sports and football academy in Doha, Qatar. Funded by the Al-Thani royal family. Hosted Aspire Dreams scholars.
Aspire Football Dreams:
Qatar’s talent-scouting project which targeted 13-year-olds all over the world for scholarships in Doha and Senegal.
Charlie Baffour:
London-based Fifa-licensed agent who met with Simon Lenagan and me in London to discuss taking underage players to Oxford United.
Barcelona:
Handed a 14-month transfer ban by Fifa for signing six players from overseas under the age of 18 to their La Masia academy, a breach of Article 19.
Craig Bellamy:
Former Wales international striker who set up an academy in Ivory Coast.
Ben:
Footballer who at 16 paid an unscrupulous agent €3,000 to take him from Cameroon to Paris for trials at clubs. He was told to wait at a hotel. The agent did not return.
Belgian club which fielded an all-African XI in the early 2000s, largely thanks to an agreement with ASEC Mimosas.
Sepp Blatter:
Former president of Fifa, football’s governing body, laid the blame firmly at the feet of Europe’s clubs for football’s trafficking problem. He said they were ‘neo-colonialists who don’t give a damn about heritage and culture but engage in social and economic rape by robbing the developing world of its best players’. He called the recruitment of children from Africa ‘unhealthy if not despicable’. Criticised the Aspire Academy in Qatar for much the same but performed a u-turn after visiting Doha in 2008.
Andreas Bleicher:
Head of the Aspire Dreams project.
Erin Bowser:
Works for the Ghana office of the International Organisation for Migration, the anti-trafficking charity headed by William Swing. Revealed some of the methods of the traffickers.
Brentford:
English Championship club which charged footballers for trials, including underage players from outside the EU, despite work-permit rules and Article 19 preventing them being signed on the professional contract that was on offer.
Chelsea:
Banned by Fifa for signing players for two transfer windows for inducing Gaël Kakuta, a 16-year-old from RC Lens, to break his contract with the French club.
Cheltenham Town:
English League Two club which charged footballers for trials, including underage players from outside the EU, despite work-permit rules and Article 19 preventing them being signed on the professional contract that was on offer.
Works for Payoke, the charity which investigated the cases of Omo Monday and Manasseh Ishiaku. Former director of immigration at Zaventem airport and had worked for the Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism in Brussels.
Dr Paul Darby:
Senior lecturer in sport and exercise at the University of Ulster who researched exhaustively African football labour migration and denounced the Aspire Dreams project.
Jean-Marie Dedecker:
Former Belgian politician who investigated football trafficking and was responsible for the rise in the minimum wage for foreign players in the country. Took the case of Omo Monday and Manasseh Ishiaku to court.
Didier:
Footballer from Cameroon who went to the Aspire Academy in Doha at 13. Was ‘sold’ to an agent in Argentina who beat and racially abused him and told his mother to fake her death certificate so he could sign for a club.
Eby Emenike:
London-based Fifa-licensed agent. Revealed the anatomy of child football trafficking. Was agent to Al Bangura, the former Watford player who was sex trafficked from Guinea.
Michael Essien:
Former Liberty Professionals player who, when he signed for Chelsea, inspired a generation of young Ghanaian footballers and their families.
James Esson:
Lecturer in human geography at Loughborough University who has written extensively on football slavery.
Old Fadama:
Largest Accra slum, which the locals call Sodom and Gomorrah.
11-year-old from Old Fadama, Accra, who works in one of largest digital waste dumps in the world.
Feyenoord Fetteh:
One of the first football academies in West Africa. Launched in 1999, it was a joint partnership between Feyenoord, the Dutch club, the Ghanaian Sports Ministry and tribal chiefs. Was subsumed by the West African Football Academy, or Wafa for short. Such academies gave rise to charge of ‘neo-colonialism’.
Fieldoo:
Football social networking site which connects players with scouts and agents. Used by Som Kalou, my fake footballer, to find Hamid.
FifPro:
Worldwide players’ union.
Foot Solidaire:
Charity set up to counter football trafficking by the former Cameroon international, Jean-Claude Mbvoumin. Reported that there were 7,000 cases in France alone in nine years from 2005.
FootballCV:
English company who charged footballers for trials, including underage players from outside the EU, despite work-permit rules and Article 19 preventing triallists being signed.
Christopher Forsythe:
Agent banned by Ghana FA for his role in a match-fixing sting. Revealed anatomy of trade in kids to ‘John’.
Frank:
19-year-old footballer from Ghana who Lois had adopted and took to Larnaca. Was still in Larnaca after his visa had expired.
Ghanaian footballer who had been trafficked to Cyprus and had ended up working without pay as a hotel caretaker.
George:
21-year-old footballer from Ghana who Lois had taken to Larnaca.
Mark Goddard:
Manager of the Fifa Transfer Matching System.
Jean-Marc Guillou:
Close friend of Arsène Wenger, the Arsenal manager. Ran the academy at ASEC Mimosas.
Ralph Gyambrah:
Business partner of Christopher Forsythe.
Asamoah Gyan:
Former Liberty Professionals player and star of the Ghana national team.
Stewart Hall:
Football coach for 30 years who has worked all over the world and extensively in Africa. Suggested traffickers could be moving players for match-fixing purposes.
Hamid:
Agent from Lanrnaca, Cyprus, who told Som Kalou to pay him €1,000 for a visa. Arranged a trial match with 21 Africans for Scout Network and discussed ways to circumnavigate Article 19.
John Hawkins:
Founder of Scout Network. My cover name when speaking to agents and scouts.
Richard Hoskins:
Criminologist and expert in trafficking and African religion. Doubted that players would be trafficked for football purposes only.
In partnership with Hamid. In 2002 he was detained in Cyprus, with two teammates, following arrest by immigration officials. Claimed to have been trafficked from Russia.
International Centre for Sport and Security (ICSS):
A sort of self-proclaimed police force for world sport, funded by the Qatari royal family. Tried to counter match-fixing and trafficking of minors.
International Transfer Certificate (ITC):
For a player to move abroad he must have an ITC. It is ratified by Fifa’s Transfer Matching System and released by the association of the selling club.
Manasseh Ishiaku:
17-year-old Nigerian footballer who said he was trafficked in 2001 by Roeselare FC, a Belgian first division club.
Jamestown:
Accra slum more famous for producing boxers, but Samuel (agent and my guide) claimed would soon produce a raft of football stars due to the desperation and large number of academies.
Jay-Jay:
Sex trafficked at 17 from Guinea to London under the false promise of career in football. I took him to trials at Cheltenham Town and Oxford United.
Joseph Kaltim:
16-year-old Nigerian footballer who was sent a false trial invitation letter from Queens Park Rangers. Was the inspiration for Som Kalou.
KAS Eupen:
Belgian second division club effectively bought by the Aspire Academy in 2012.
Lake Volta:
Ghana reservoir, largest in the world. Children as young as four are sold to fishermen, often under the guise of football, who use them to untangle nets from trees below the water line.
Coach of Liberty Professionals.
Larnaca:
City in Cyprus where I posed as John Hawkins for Scout Network to uncover the ‘cell’ of Hamid, Mohamed Opong Imari and Lois.
Simon Lenagan:
Former director at Oxford United. Provided me with a letter from the club to convince agents that Scout Network was a bona fide operation.
Liberty Professionals:
Ghanaian Premier League team with no interest in winning matches, only in producing young talent to sell to Europe. Have produced Michael Essien, Asamoah Gyan and Sulley Muntari.
Lois:
Academy manager in Accra. Claimed she had sent seven underage players to Europe. Boasted about using the influence of her sister at Ghanaian embassies to get visas. Advised Scout Network about the illegal ‘bridge transfer’. Said she adopted boys to make it easier to move players.
David Mallinger:
Founder and director of FootballCV. Director at Corby Town and Kettering Town.
Manchester City:
Admitted involvement with Right to Dream Academy, Ghana, and refused to deny they part-funded the operation. By 2013 City had signed six Right to Dream graduates.
Jake Marsh:
Head of child protection at the International Centre for Sport and Security. Revealed the anatomy of child football trafficking.
Mathieu:
Volunteer with Foot Solidaire.
Founder of Foot Solidaire, the anti-trafficking charity. Former Cameroon international.
Darragh McGee:
Lived in Accra and had worked as a football coach at academies in the city, including Feyenoord Fetteh. He is an academic, a faculty member of the school for health at the University of Bath, and has authored a paper on child trafficking in sport.
‘Mehdi’:
Formerly part of the Aspire Dreams management group. Criticised the project for the attempted naturalisation of players.
FC Midtjylland:
Danish club which, in 2007, became one of the first to fall foul of Article 19 when they were found to have imported 17-year-olds from a feeder club in Nigeria.
Roger Milla:
Former Cameroon striker and star of the 1990 World Cup who had been a ‘roving ambassador’ for Foot Solidaire.
Bora Milutinovic:
Serbian coach and former manager of the USA, Mexican and Nigerian national sides (among others), and ambassador for the Aspire Academy, Qatar. Boasted that from 2007 to 2013, 3.7 million children had been screened by the Aspire Football Dreams programme.
Miyu Mitake-Leroy:
Japanese translator hired to help me interview Shinji.
Omo Monday:
16-year-old Nigerian footballer who said he was trafficked in 2001 by Roeselare FC, a Belgian first division club.
Sulley Muntari:
Former Liberty Professionals player and star of the Ghana national team.
Organised the trials for Cheltenham Town. Said they accepted players from Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
Cardinal Vincent Nichols:
Archbishop of Westminster who, in 2014 at an anti-trafficking conference in London, demanded more information about football’s slave trade.
Oxford United:
League Two club which provided a letter of authenticity to Scout Network. Also staged a three-day trial for Jay-Jay.
Payoke:
Belgian anti-trafficking charity who Solange Cluydts works for.
Player passport:
Records details of each club or academy a player has played for, and for how long, so monies due under Fifa’s Training Compensation Scheme can be worked out.
Right to Dream Academy:
Based in Ghana, run by Tom Vernon, a former coach at Manchester United. Manchester City would not deny that they part-funded the academy.
Roadside academy:
Known as ‘neighbourhood teams’ and operated on an informal basis, the roadside academy phenomenon is hugely prevalent in West Africa. Academy managers hope to find the next Michael Essien to sell to a European scout or Ghanaian professional team. Would waive rights to the Training Compensation Scheme because they are not affiliated to national associations. At the bottom of the three-tier football system in West Africa.
Roeselare FC:
Belgian first division club involved with Omo Monday and Manasseh Ishiaku, although Roger Havegeer, the president, was found not guilty of human trafficking.
Agent with small stakes in lower division clubs in Ghana. My guide in Accra.
Schengen:
Visa which allows the holder to move freely between 26 European countries, although not the UK and Ireland. They cost about €150. Tino, the Accra underworld figure, charged €7,000 to secure a Schengen.
Scout Network:
Fake talent-search company set up to help expose the methods used by agents to move under-18 footballers from country to country.
Shinji:
21-year-old Japanese footballer present at Football Solidaire/UN conference in the company of Jean-Claude Mbvoumin.
Slave contract:
Player contract heavily in favour of the club and the agent. It might include a meagre salary, or in some cases no wage at all. Often expenses or the rent for an apartment are all that is offered.
Graham Starmer:
Managing director of FootballCV and vice-chairman of Corby Town.
Sulley:
Footballer from Burkina Faso who went to Portugal at 16 only for his agent to ditch him when he couldn’t find him a club. Had travelled to Paris in search of a team and was destitute.
William Swing:
Director general of the International Organisation for Migration who spoke at the Geneva conference at the UN organised by Foot Solidaire.
Al Thani family:
Royal family of Qatar. Have invested heavily in sport and football, including in the Aspire Academy, Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain. Bankrolled Qatar’s World Cup bid.
Accra underworld figure capable of illegally obtaining passports, birth certificates and visas for the purpose of football trafficking.
Transfer Matching System (TMS):
Launched in 2010, the TMS regulates the international transfer market, ensuring data from both the selling club and buying club match. Designed to prevent fraud, money laundering and trafficking of underage players.
Unicef:
World’s largest children’s charity, which benefited from a sponsorship deal with Barcelona. Refused to condemn the club for breach of Article 19.
West African Football Academy:
One of the largest academies in West Africa. Incorporated the Feyenoord Fetteh academy and Red Bull academy.
Work-permit regulations:
In the UK a club can only sign a non-EU passport holder if he is an international from a country ranked within Fifa’s top 70 and has played in 75 per cent of his country’s international matches in the preceding two years. In 2015 the English FA introduced new rules to make it harder to sign non-EU players, including restricting imports to only the top 50 ranked countries.