Get the FREE Mirror Football newsletter by email with the day's key headlines and transfer news Sign up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Thousands of starry-eyed kids from poor countries dreaming of football stardom are being preyed on by sick child traffickers.

The crooks pose as soccer agents, using social media to dupe youngsters’ hard-up families into coughing up all the money they have to send them to the UK and Europe with the lure of trials for rich clubs.

But the children, some as young as 13 and mainly from African nations, are given fake passports and end up dumped with no cash or documents.

Often they are taken to a remote country like Nepal, supposedly to ‘wait for visas’ – and abandoned there.

Wherever they end up, they are then often forced into a life of slavery, ­prostitution and drug dealing, a Sunday People investigation reveals.

(Image: Getty)

Families of at least 100 kids a year are conned into paying ‘agents’ – ­claiming to work for clubs like Manchester City and Liverpool – up to £19,000 in ‘fees’ for their sons to go to Britain with false promises of them being the next Sadio Mane or Harry Kane and earning ­millions a year in wages.

And around Europe, it is believed as many as 15,000 vulnerable youngsters are annually drawn into the crooks’ net this way.

The practice was blasted last night as “football’s dirty little secret” and the sport’s leading authorities including FIFA were accused of failing to protect these victims.

FIFA’s former head of security, ex-Interpol agent Chris Eaton, said: “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.”

(Image: Getty)

Alarmingly, experts say it is almost impossible for police to prosecute the conmen because their victims’ families feel “humiliated” and refuse to admit what has happened.

The fake agents contact football hopefuls through social media sites like Facebook by cloning professional club invitations to dupe children.

Teenagers from countries like Nigeria, Senegal, Ghana and Mali – where the average wage is just £887 a year – are easy prey, dreaming of fame and the £90,000 a week that Mane earns at Anfield.

He is the poster boy of African football after making the leap from poverty-stricken Senegal to the Premier League.

At 16, through a genuine scouting system, the midfielder was snapped up by French side Metz in 2011.

He joined Southampton in 2014 before signing for Liverpool two years later for £34million.

He plays in a league awash with billions of pounds. Manchester City netted £150million for winning the title last year.

The total value of Premier League shirt sponsorship topped £280million.

The rights deal for BT and Sky to show Premier matches in the UK from 2019 to 2022 totalled £4.4billion.

It is little wonder wide-eyed youngsters in poverty take the bait of a rich new life in Europe.

But in the darker world of shattered football dreams, the passports to that life are fakes.

Forgers charge 500 euros a time for the documents the wide-eyed youngsters need as they arrive in Europe.

Investigators are currently trying to trace one forger known only as ‘Yaya’ who is based in Paris.

One of his passports was found on a victim plucked from his home in Bamako, Mali, and promised trials at one of Europe’s top clubs.

He was trafficked overland to Paris by Lebanese smugglers where he discovered the promise was a scam and was left unable to pay for a trip back home.

Investigators who picked him up found jewellery and mobile phones on him, suggesting he had been forced into slavery for a criminal network.

(Image: Getty)

Pictures of Yaya – passed to us by International Centre for Sport Security (ICSS) – were taken in Paris at the Gare du Nord train station where he handed over a fake passport to his victim to enable him to work in the city.

Yaya vanished before police could arrive.

Fred Lord of the ICSS told us: “Reliable organisations that monitor the movement of minors from Africa in search of football glory estimate 15,000 youths are tricked and trafficked globally each year.

“Premier League clubs have made significant efforts to discourage ­families of ambitious kids from using unrecognised agents and the number trafficked to the UK has dropped significantly.

“But it has not disappeared. Over 100 youths are tricked by fake agents every year.

“Many more are trafficked to what they are told are countries to prepare them to go to the UK, such as Nepal, and later abandoned and destitute.”

The issue is so widespread the ICSS has set up a hotline for vulnerable children who fear they have been trafficked. Since December at least 16 have called.

Earlier this year it emerged children lured to Britain on the promise of trials at Premier League football clubs were among thousands of slaves whose ­captors are evading justice.

Only six per cent of crimes recorded by police forces under the Modern Slavery Act have led to charges since the legislation was introduced in 2015.

Of the 5,145 suspected slaves referred to the national safeguarding programme last year, 2,118 were under 18.

Exploitation of children and teenagers increased 66 per cent on the previous year, with total referrals up from 3,804.

Matthew Hall, a spokesman for Mission 89 which fights to prevent the exploitation of children in sport, added: “This is football’s dirty little secret.

"It’s as simple as a man turning up in an African village wearing a white linen suit and promising a professional career.

"Quite often it never materialises and these people are left abandoned.”

Baroness Barbara Young, who has campaigned to abolish modern slavery, said: “We should not be closing our eyes to this. We need to work on a way of alerting these boys who are being lured away from their families by fake agents

"They are preying on ­aspirations of people often quite poor. Premier League and Championship clubs’s names are being used.

“They should be concerned about this.”

A Premier League spokesman said: “It is very concerning to hear scammers and fraudsters are trying to trick people in this way.

"Premier League clubs would never ask families from overseas to pay for elite trials for their children.

“Additionally, strict rules prohibit any English club from ­registering a player from outside of Europe unless they are over 18.

“Should any parent have concerns about someone offering their child a trial at one of our clubs they should contact safeguarding@premierleague.com and we will provide them with advice and guidance.”

How they do it

Fake agents scour the internet for hopefuls on Facebook or soccer sites. They also act on tip-offs about young African players looking to play in Europe.

Children are targeted at African clubs or academies, on social networks, in the street or during informal tournaments.

The conmen appear legitimate by building online profiles in the names of unwitting FIFA-approved agents.

They produce phoney letters with Premier League crests at the top, detailing lucrative contracts worth thousands of pounds each week.

Conmen even claim their victims will land signing-on fees worth more than £200,000 as well as a club flat and a car when they arrive.

They tell kids – and their parents – they can get them trials at top European clubs and Premier League sides.

But they warn the kids’s families they must pay for visas and travel before they make the trip.

'I lost everything'

Nigerian Andrew Gerald was one of thousands of young footballers whose family was tricked into paying huge sums to a fake agent.

He was 18 and an amateur at a club in Lagos when approached and told he had the potential to play in the Premier League. The agent said first he could have trials at a club in Romania.

His family scraped together nearly £700 and shelled out for a flight to Senegal where he was told he would spend a week waiting for a visa.

But the documents never arrived and he was stranded in Dakar 14 years before he was able to escape. Now 33, he landed a contract in Macedonia but he 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.”