By Mark Baber
July 22 – FIFPro has revealed details of a case they have been working on involving children from Africa being trafficked to Laos, telling FIFA “the current Transfer Matching System (FIFA TMS) does not guarantee the protection of minor players.”
According to a statement issued by FIFPro “the world players’ union strongly urges the game’s global governing body to fix this problem in an expedient manner. FIFPro has uncovered a trafficking practice perpetrated by a Laotian premier league club which has victimised numerous Liberian minors. The club currently refuses to let six minor and eight young adult footballers leave the club and return to their homes.”
FIFPro “appeals for the immediate release of the players and demands that FIFA and all FA’s involved will realise that this situation be solved in a forthright manner, with the players returning to their Liberian homes and families safely and without any obstacles such as expired visas or so-called ‘expenses’.”
Although FIFA transfer regulations prohibit minor players making an international transfer or joining an academy abroad (Article 19 and 19bis of the FIFA Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players), these rules do not appear to be enforced in a consistent fashion and, according to FIFPro, did not prevent six minor players from Liberia signing a multi-year contract with a Laotian premier league club, while two minors appeared in official premier league matches.
FIFPro has sent an official complaint to FIFA’s Disciplinary Committee requesting a thorough explanation about how Liberian minors were able to join the Laotian Premier League club Idsea Champasak FC and the football academy aligned to it and how it was possible for two players to appear in Laotian Premier League matches without the FIFA TMS preventing this from happening.
FIFPro has also urged FIFA to take disciplinary action against the Laos FA in order to prevent this practice from continuing and has demanded those who initiated the scheme should be brought to justice by FIFA and other relevant authorities.
Stéphane Burchkalter, FIFPro Division Africa Secretary General, commented that: “It is shocking to FIFPro that a club from Laos, which – with all due respect – is a very small football country, can lure 21 minor players from Liberia without the FIFA TMS noticing.
“What makes this case even more worrying, is that the club and academy apparently are run by unscrupulous men who don’t care about players’ rights or human rights. The wellbeing of the players is not in their interest. They clearly treat players as merchandise. “
FIFPro says that over the last four months it has been working to assure the safe return home of more than 30 young African footballers who were lured to Laos with promises of an education and a potential future in professional football. FIFPro says 14 of the players are still being held against their will in Laos, with no visa, no residence or working permit and are not being allowed to leave because the club says they have signed a contract.
As Barcelona serve a ridiculously ineffective transfer ban for their part in breaking the rules intended to prevent child trafficking, FIFPro says that it suspects that the Laotian case is not one of its kind, but “probably the tip of the iceberg.”
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