Did you know over 15,000 young boys are travelling across Africa on a promise from a fake football agent that they will get trials at big European football clubs?

Well, this is the story of football trafficking as reported by iq4news where parents are so desperate to get their youngsters seen by the European clubs they will pay ‘agents’ $2,000 to take their child to training camps where they will be prepared to be picked up by a club and follow in the footsteps of some of their idols.

All they had to do was pay and the dream they had was to be formed, the journey they undertook was recorded by 1q4news, it was far from easy.

The parents pay an agent an initial $1,500 to enrol them in an academy set-up where the children will get an education on and off the field, some of these children as young as 12, with the average age being 16. The agent made comments of links with clubs of quite a stature in Borussia Dortmund and Dinamo Zagreb, neither clubs claim to know the agent in question.

Players were so keen to live their dream they rejecting any fears put across from members already in the football camp and kept going despite some nights sleeping in cardboard boxes or thin mattresses with any phones confiscated to stop contact back home, coaches would call families and update them on a situation while asking for more money when required, these are families that begged and borrowed to scrap together a fund to give their child a chance, a chance that was simply non-existent.

Of course, the promise of an academy was false, a place in the middle of nowhere with the toilets facility also that of the school they would be attending.

More worryingly, food was not provided for the children so when they went to their first tournament with a chance to show their worth they couldn’t perform, simply too malnourished to show what they could offer to clubs but according to their coach it was all because they were “unfit”.

With a lack of food on the table the children resorted to stealing at night, they learnt to fend for themselves to survive. Working for a farmer if possible in exchange for food, if not they would have to simply steal crops to live. All this happening while parents were still paying an ‘agent’ making an overall expense of $2,000 to a man they thought was going to make their child the next Yaya Toure or Didier Drogba.

The help available for these children and families is few and far between despite it being a known problem among the footballing bigwigs.

The report is based in Nigeria so to highlight their chances of making it to a European giant, here are some stats. 400 players play in a European country, of those 400 only 65 play in one of the ‘major countries’ (England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France.) of those 65 just 17 play at the top flight in that country.

Most of these fake agents operate in Nigeria and Ukraine with no licenses any more it is extremely difficult to work out whether an agent is being truthful or when one isn’t. This has been mentioned before even at the top level with West Brom’s Richard Garlick highlighting that people claim to be ‘representing’ a player when in fact they have no contact with that player. If that is happening at the very top then how difficult must it be for a parent desperate to see their child succeed?

Some children are taken out of their homes, away from their families, used as slaves to work and then taken to another country where they are used once more or abandoned away from anywhere familiar.

This is a problem across football, it’s something that football seems to have swept under the carpet with Football Federations in Africa doing little to help the problem and FIFA also acting like it doesn’t exist, players can be transferred internationally at the age of 12, this allows agents to manipulate parents and get people believing they can make it when in fact all they are after is a quick buck.

These agents also leave staff members stranded too, coaches, nurses, chefs. They work on promises that never come.

So, that’s the story of football trafficking in Africa, a complex subject and we have just scratched the surface on a massive problem within the game, a massive problem that needs addressing.