Challenging popular representations of child trafficking in football

Purpose Reports of human trafficking within the football industry have become a topic of academic, political and media concern. The movement of and trade in aspirant young (male) footballers from West Africa to Europe, and more recently to Asia, dominates these accounts. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach This paper provides an overview of scholarship on this topic, with a specific focus on exploring how this form of human trafficking intersects with the broader debates over children’s rights in the context of exploitation tied to the irregular forms of migration. Findings The paper illustrates how popular narratives associated with the trafficking of young West African footballers mimic stereotypical portrayals of child trafficking, which have implications for the solutions put forward. It is argued that popular representations of football-related child trafficking are problematic for several reasons, but two are emphasised here. First, they perpetuate a perception that the mobility of young African footballers entails a deviant form of agency in need of fixing, while simultaneously disassociating the desire to migrate from the broader social structures that need to be addressed. Second, and relatedly, they result in regulations and policy solutions that are inadvertently reductive and often at odds with the best interests of the children they seek to protect. Originality/value This an original study of the narratives associated with the trafficking of young West African footballers and those of child trafficking. </jats:sec

Submission of Evidence on the Disproportionate Impact of Covid-19 on Grassroots Football: An agenda to protect our game and communities.:Submitted to the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee

In this submission, we discuss why grassroots football (and particularly the vulnerable communities that rely on it) will be negatively affected by COVID-19. The centrality of football – in terms of the both professional football clubs and grassroots football – to people’s everyday lives has been brought into focus by the pandemic. But, to date, the response by government and the football authorities has privileged the narrow stratum of the elite professional game (i.e. the English Premier League [EPL]) to the detriment of other levels, notably grassroots football. In the short-term, the pandemic is likely to have a disproportionately negative impact on the physical and mental well-being of those adults and children in the most deprived communities in England

Rights, risks, and responsibilities in the recruitment of children within the global football industry

This paper examines children’s engagement with the increasingly global and commercialised football industry. By combining a Global Production Network approach and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child it is argued that, for children’s rights and best interests to be better upheld and realised within the football industry, regulatory conditions need to account for geographical contextuality and incorporate scope for children to inform regulatory frameworks and practice. The paper highlights the importance of designing and implementing research that recognises and operationalises children’s agency, which can both inform and influence regulations and practices, better to reflect children’s best interests.</jats:p

Children before players: Current risks and future research agendas

This report identifies and examines ‘sites’ of interaction between the global football industry’s recruitment network and the rights of the child as articulated in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). A ‘global production network’ (GPN) framework was used alongside the UNCRC to map and audit where children’s rights may be at risk or impinged upon, because of their involvement with football. Overall, this report found that the regulatory system and governance structures concerning the recruitment of child players within the football industry, produce consequences that impinge upon the rights of children as expressed in the UNCRC and place children at risk of exploitation and abuse

Children’s rights and the regulations on the transfer of young players in football

Children who interact with football’s recruitment and transfer processes encounter a complex web of regulations and practices. Debates over how to ensure that the interests and well-being of young football players are adequately protected, and that risks to their rights and welfare are identified and addressed, have become a topic of academic, political, and media concern. This commentary article provides an overview of the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) regulations concerning the mobility and representation of minors in player recruitment processes, in particular the Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players (RSTP) and the Regulations on Working with Intermediaries (RWI). We examine these regulations through the lens of the United Nations Children’s Rights Conventions (UNCRC). In so doing, the article demonstrates how football’s regulatory frameworks and commercial practices inadvertently yield consequences that operate against the best interests of children involved in the sport. To counteract this, it is proposed that all planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of regulations involving the recruitment and transfer of young people should be explicitly informed by globally accepted standards of children’s rights, such as the UNCRC. More specifically, it is argued that FIFA should adopt an approach that places the child at the centre of regulatory frameworks and characterises the child as a ‘rights holder’

‘We need to talk about the kids': FIFA’s children's rights obligations

This blog explores children’s rights violations connected to FIFA’s activities and discusses the slightly disjointed approach taken to this area in the past which tended to be piecemeal, reactive and uncoordinated.</p