On footballing dreams

A few years ago, I interviewed some Nigerian men in Belgium who’d found themselves in Europe hoping to play professional football. None of them ended up doing so, and not for lack of talent. For obvious reasons, their stories have been on my mind. Junior, born in 1988 and raised in FESTAC had always wanted […]

A few years ago, I interviewed some Nigerian men in Belgium who’d found themselves in Europe hoping to play professional football. None of them ended up doing so, and not for lack of talent. For obvious reasons, their stories have been on my mind.

Junior, born in 1988 and raised in FESTAC had always wanted to play professional football since he was in SS1. At 18, he was scouted and picked up by an agent who brought him to Belgium. This agent – eager for a player who could get a professional contract immediately – was disappointed that the team he had hoped to sell him to would not sign him on. “One month and three weeks later, I was back in Lagos.”

Junior is as meticulous about dates as he appears to be about his carefully trimmed beard. There are no approximations with him. I wonder if he has learned to do this – to be precise about dates and time – out of necessity. Belgians demand preciseness, even in casual conversations.

“After one year and nine months, I was in Italy with another agent.” This was an agent with the reputation of getting all is talents signed. However, because this agent was bringing in players only with the blessing of the president of the team and not in collaboration with the other officials, and he was being undercut by another agent who also brought in players from Africa for 10 times less than the fees Junior’s agent was asking for, Junior could not be signed.

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In 2009, a Nigerian agent brought him to Finland to play with a team which guaranteed him a 70% chance of being signed on. However, after two weeks, the same agent called and asked him to lie to the club that he had to leave unexpectedly “for Africa” but to in fact make his way to Belgium where his European counterpart would have him sign with a better team since he was too good a player for Finland.

He was put up in a nice hotel in Chaleroi and in the two weeks he was there, he was only taken out to train once with an under-13 team. He does not understand what went wrong but he never heard from either his Nigerian agent or his Belgian colleague again. Tossed out by the hotel for non-payment of accommodation, he moved in “with a friend in Antwerp,” rather than return to Nigeria and so began his battle to live legally in Belgium.

Lateef has been in Europe since 2010, going first to Portugal with a touring team from Nigeria, playing exhibition matches.  One of those was against Sporting Lisbon but he was left out when his Nigerian agent asked for a higher paying fee than was offered to him, Lateef says. Rather than be returned to Nigeria, Lateef called his “brother” in Belgium. This “brother” was a fellow Nigerian who was – by his own accounts – a successful player in Belgium and could get Lateef into a team. He lived in Kortrijk and offered Lateef the boarding and lodging. 

Lateef travelled to Belgium only to discover that this “successful football player” was an asylum seeker, housed in a government building from which Lateef had to disappear whenever there was an official check.  “I’d spend hours roaming the streets of Kortrijk until I was sure the government official had left.” But those were not wasted hours. Lateef met fellow Africans, one of whom was a Ghanaian man who took him to an indoor stadium where he could practice football.  

While practicing one day, “a white man who was watching” was very impressed by Lateef’s skill that he gave Lateef and his friend a ticket to watch the local first division side KV Kortrijk play. He promised to introduce Lateef to the coach but Lateef, after waiting for two hours without the man re-appearing, left. He still regrets it. “I should have waited.”

 If there’s any point to sharing these stories besides just having football on my mind, it is perhaps to be wary of liars (Junior might have had an easier and more rewarding time in Finland) and to practice patience (Lateef might have ended up playing first division football in Belgium).