Football Confidential

I just cracked a copy of Football Confidential (2000), an investigative documentary book from the BBC... "a journey through the underbelly of our (the UK's) national game covering the period when it transmuted from a mere spectator sport into an entertainment industry" (p6).

This is gonna be good. Here's a bit from chapter 10:
Soccer Slaves
The young players dumped on the streets by ruthless agents

Living in an abandoned bus, cold and hungry, wasn't exactly Timi had in mind when he was promised a glittering career in European football.

An engaging and articulate young man, he showed talent from the time he first kicked a ball as a seven-year-old on the streets of Lagos, the Nigerian capital. 'When I was young I always ed I'd play in Europe, especially in Germany or England," he says. "My father loved football. He encouraged me to play and, when I had the opportunity to go to Europe to further my career, he gave me the finance to go there.'

Timi (his full name is Adewusi Olurotimi) was 17 when a footballing friend put him in touch with an agent. 'The agent made me a lot of promises before I left Nigeria; and because I was a teenager I had to sign lots of papers for my parents saying that he was going to take care of me and find me a club. He said that if I came to Europe I would live better than in Nigeria, play football, be happy, gain a lot of money and play in a big club. I believed him.'

What happened next was just one example of a football scandal that is now being investigated at the highest levels of the United Nations. It is a story that stretches from the slums of Rio to the shanty towns of Soweto; a seedy, frightening saga of human trafficking and exploitation that borders on slavery. How could it happen at the dawn of the twenty-first century is testimony to the greed and opportunism of much of the modern game.