#Faceless menace bounce lands professional#

We do this vetting to avoid our players becoming victims of trafficking.' 'For us here at Brikama United, when agents approach our players, they come to me first to vet this agent before even the discussion gets to the club's administration. Modou Lamin Nyassi, head coach of Brikama United, said: 'Some footballers are aware of human trafficking but some are not, and that is why it is important for clubs to talk to their players about it so that they don't fall victim of it. However, Brikama United are aware of the existence of the menace and club officials repeatedly sensitizes their playersabout human trafficking and the tricks of unscrupulous football agents. 'Players belong to clubs not GFF but these clubs are affiliated to the GFF, therefore it is the collective responsibility of both the GFF and the clubs to protect the players at all times.'īig clubs in The Gambia contacted for this story including Real De Banjul said they have no experience or record on trafficking in sports. Like NAATIP, the Gambia Football Federation also does not have any record of trafficking in sports.īabucarr Jobe, the federation's director of competition, said GFF is working on organizing 'massive sensitization' to create awareness about trafficking in sports and how sportsmen and women can avoid falling into the trap of so-called foreign club recruitment agents. But when these young boys got there, their passports were seized and they ended up as domestic workers.

#Faceless menace bounce lands professional#

'Some time back when I was a journalist, there were three Gambian players, for confidentiality I can't reveal their names, who were falsely given opportunity to play professional football in the Middle East by somebody who claimed to be a recruitment agent for certain clubs in there. 'The dream of playing in a foreign league with all the benefits and fame that comes with such, makes young footballers easily exploitable by so-called agents,' said Beyai, who was once a journalist. Modou Lamin Beyai, a football agent, said so-called football agents take advantage of stories like that of Ebrima to lure young people who see a professional career in sports in a foreign land as a way out of poverty and a way to financially assist their families.

This has offered and widened the opportunity for human traffickers claiming to be intermediaries or agents of foreign football clubs to lure young sportsmen and women on the guise of taking them to foreign countries legally to further their sporting career.