47 young footballers victims of human trafficking in a training center – Liberation

The young footballers from countries in Africa, Asia and South America have just been rescued by the police. The head of the academy, also president of the general assembly of the Portuguese football league, has resigned.

A crackdown in a Portuguese football academy. 47 young footballers, including 36 minors, were rescued by the Portuguese police on Monday in an operation against a network of human trafficking linked to a training center in the north of the country, said this Thursday, June 15 the Portuguese service of foreigners and borders (SEF).

The victims were men from countries in Africa, Asia and South America. According to local media, they were sequestered in the premises of the Bsports football academy, in Riba d’Ave, near Vila Nova de Famalicao (north).

Placed in institutions “under the protection of the State”, specifies the SEF, the young players will testify before a judge before returning to their countries of origin.

‘Unacceptable and shocking’

Two Portuguese and five companies were indicted in connection with this operation, during which several “passports and residence permits” were seized. One of the two people indicted has been identified by the media as Mario Costa, president of the general assembly of the Portuguese football league, a post from which he resigned on Wednesday, claiming not to have committed any illegality.

Responsible for the BSports Academy, the man was in the sights of the authorities according to the Portuguese newspaper Publico, for irregularities in the operation of the academy, whose mission is to provide school and sports training to young athletes from different continents, mainly from South America and Africa.

The illegal recruitment of footballers is “unacceptable and shocking”, reacted the Secretary of State for Youth and Sports, Joao Paulo Correia, assuring that the government would “take measures” to fight against this type of trafficking. human beings.

This case recalls, in another register but still within a football school, that which broke out in April in Spain, where around 70 teenagers and young men, mainly Brazilians, were victims of a scam. Two criminal organizations, supposedly owners of football schools, in Granada, in the south of the country, made these apprentice footballers believe that they could turn them into stars of the stadiums.

With a well-oiled method: wealthy families of young people were approached in their country, by locals or people from Granada and, faced with the promise of having them join clubs in the city and then being recruited by professional teams , paid thousands of euros to the crooks.