"The last time Diodo Sokhna spoke to her teenage son, he seemed subdued, his voice sapped of all the optimism he had set off with on a journey supposed to put him on the road to a career as a professional footballer. After that call Cheikh Toure went silent. His mother's WhatsApp messages to his phone received only the dreaded single tick, indicating they had not been received."
"I screamed. My son was dead and I am broken, she says. They killed my only son. The 18-year-old, a promising goalkeeper from Senegal's capital, Dakar, died in October, just weeks after leaving home. He thought he was heading for Morocco, where he would have club trials and meet agents and international coaches. Instead, he was taken hundreds of miles away to Ghana, where he was ordered to ring home and tell his family to send his captors money."
An 18-year-old Senegalese goalkeeper, Cheikh Toure, was lured by promises of club trials in Morocco, detained in Ghana and forced to call home demanding ransom before he died. Fake agents and illegal football academies increasingly convince aspiring African players to travel for fraudulent trials or meetings, exposing them to trafficking, extortion and death. Poverty and dreams of European clubs make young players vulnerable to unsolicited approaches. A 2023 Fifpro survey of more than 250 African footballers found 70% received unsolicited agent approaches; 56% did not receive promised trials and 44% did not obtain expected contracts. Many families send money under coercion.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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