The world’s youth are not only captivated by the
performances of the players who adorn their television screens, they are also
made aware of the wealth and lifestyles associated with professional football. The
idea that a career in football is a viable livelihood strategy capable of
lifting an individual and their family out of poverty has among young,
poorly-educated males from low-income families.
In Ghana football academies have been accused of exploiting
talent and promoting trafficking in search of profit. Football administrators,
academics and human rights activists have recently drawn attention to some
unsavoury activities taking place in West African football academies. Analysts
are concerned that the academy system has become a vehicle for neo-colonial
exploitation that fuels human trafficking. They argue that European clubs and
speculators take ownership or executive control of African-based academies to
sidestep certain regulations, such as the ban on the international transfer of
minors, in order to sign African talent at an early age and then profit from
their subsequent sale to rich, typically European, clubs. Some commentators,
including FIFA President Sepp Blatter, have gone as far as to label this
situation a modern day slave trade. Meanwhile UEFA President Michel Platini has
suggested this transfer process is tantamount to child trafficking.
In Ghana, like other parts of the world, these football academies
take a variety forms. They range from well-funded establishments affiliated
with professional clubs to amateur, neighbourhood teams set up on an informal
basis and lacking qualified staff or proper infrastructure. Researchers have
drawn attention to the transfer practices of professional teams and a handful
of other high profile, corporately sponsored academies, and it is here that
debates over neo-colonial exploitation tend to emerge. Less well documented are
the changes taking place at smaller academies associated with amateur youth
football or, as it is colloquially known in Ghana, Colts football (under 12, 14
and 17 years of age). According to the Ghanaian Football Association (GFA)
regional office in Accra, approximately 700 clubs in 12 regional zones are in
the national ‘Colts’ league. In Accra alone there are 240 clubs, and combined
they boast a registration list of more than 20,000 players.
International transfer regulations introduced by FIFA in
2001 attempted to limit the international migration of minors by deterring
rich—i.e. European—clubs from signing talented young players based in the
Global South. A ruling was made stipulating that clubs involved in the training
and education of players between the ages of 12 and 23 must receive financial
compensation from the buying club. This compensation can range from hundreds to
millions of US dollars. The 2001 FIFA regulations thus give the labour and
investment spent training a youth player monetary value. This makes footballers
at academies more than human resources. They are also a potential source of
capital. Crucially, this financial value can only be realised when a player is
transferred or sold to another club. This has resulted in intense financial
speculation and increased trading of young Ghanaian players by academy owners,
who are searching for a star to sell at a profit to a foreign club. This means
that football academies no longer exist to merely create players for Ghanaian
leagues, but are increasingly geared towards the grooming and export of players
to foreign clubs.
Ghanaian youths are acutely aware that they either currently
are, or eventually will become, solely responsible for ensuring their future
economic wellbeing. They are also well aware that financial support in the form
of state welfare is unlikely to be forthcoming. Alongside this construction of
young Ghanaians as responsible for their future life chances is a widespread
belief that migration, preferably to Europe, offers a solution to economic
uncertainty and marginalisation. Problematically, this migratory disposition is
accompanied by a realisation that obtaining a visa to enter a European country
is easier said than done. It is here that a key appeal of a career in football
becomes apparent. To many young Ghanaians, the rags to riches stories of the
professional football player who used sport as a vehicle for migration offers a
blueprint for obtaining the trappings associated with a successful life. In a
context where youth are frequently encouraged to be job creators rather than
job seekers, the idea that the answer to economic uncertainty resides within
your own body is a particularly appealing proposition. In order to turn such
ambitions into realities, entering the Ghanaian football industry and joining
football clubs appear as obvious next steps. The increase in the number of
youths involved in Colts football, as well as the upsurge in the number of
football academies, both result from the convergence in the Ghanaian football
industry of economic liberalisation with migration-based efforts at upward
social mobility.
A generation of male youth are diverting their energies and
attention to a profession that is unlikely to reward their devotion with the
employment and social status they so desperately crave. As the Ghanaian
Football Association executive Herbert Adika succinctly put it, ‘presently
everybody wants to play football by force but all of us cannot be footballers’.
No comments:
Post a Comment