It has been revealed how many football talents from poverty-stricken countries are being duped into child trafficking by scammers who promise trials at Premier League clubs.
Read the report via The SunUK
Scammers posing as talent agents use social media to trick the youngsters and their family’s into forking out fortunes to send them to the UK and Europe, giving hopes of becoming the next Didier Drogba or Sadio Mane.
Coming mainly from African nations, children as young as 13 are given fake passports and sent to remote countries to ‘wait for visas’.
But the documents never turn, leaving them dumped with no cash or identification.
Once stranded they are often forced into lives of drug dealing, slavery or prostitution.
As many as 15,000 vulnerable kids are annually netted by traffickers in this way, according to a Sunday People investigation.
FIFA’s former head of security, ex-Interpol agent Chris Eaton, told the newspaper: “There are thousands of African children and youths tricked and even trafficked to European countries.
“They are all being attracted by the Premier League. English clubs have launched campaigns to stop this sort of crime, but it has not been matched by the Confederation of African Football or FIFA.
“They are failing in their moral duty. They talk about the dream, but so often the dream turns into a nightmare.”
Nigerian Andrew Gerald was 18 when his family was conned into paying huge sums to a crook after being told he had the potential to make it in the Premier League.
He played for a club in Lagos when he was approached by a conman, who said he could go to trials in Romania.
After his family managed to find £700 he was flown to Senegal where he was told to wait a week for a visa.
The documents never arrived and Andrew spent the next 14 years stranded in Dakar before he was finally able to escape.
Eventually, aged 33, he landed a contract in Macedonia but was never paid.
He said: “I trusted this guy. He promised I could become a pro. I lost everything. I couldn’t afford to leave and I didn’t want to give up my dream of playing football. “These agents give you a dream of becoming the next Didier Drogba or Jay-Jay Okocha.
“I know two boys who paid thousands to play at Tottenham. They were abandoned and there were no trials.”
Thousands of children have been lured to Britain after being promised trials at top clubs while their trafficking captors evade justice.
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