Dr Erkut Sogut is a man on a mission. Not only is he a successful football agent, best known for his work with former Arsenal and Real player Mesut Ozil, but he is also a man who decided to shed some light on football trafficking, and the negative things which happen to young footballers. During his travelling through Africa, he came across football trafficking and gave some examples of it, with Kenya being one of them.Jesus arrives at Fenerbahce to save the Turkish giants and Mesut Ozil’s career“I met a player in Nairobi who paid money to so-called agents. He came four hours by bus to see me. He had a letter with him. It looked like an invitation for a trial at Werder Bremen. He was so confident. He gave me the paper. My first impression was that it looks OK. If it looks real for me, imagine for him. But then I called someone from the club, I said there’s a boy here who says he is coming for trials this summer. They said no, there’s no one like that. It’s not in our system. Then I looked at the paper again and realized the small mistakes. Imagine, this boy comes four hours to meet me and I need to tell him: ”My friend, this will not happen” Sogut told Sportsmail.”It is sad, for sure”, laments Mane on a lack of African Ballon d’Or winnersThis situation is one of many which happened to him in his career as a football agent. And he estimated around 15,000 to 20,000 minors are stranded in Europe after being brought across on the pretence of trials with major clubs.“I then asked him how much money he had paid to these guys. He said there’s a German and Scottish agent he’s working with, he gave me their names and showed me Whatsapp messages with them. It looks all real. Maybe these guys aren’t even Scottish or German. It’s a scam. He’d paid already 3,000 dollars. And he said everyone in the village, every family, gave something so he could go” continued Sogut his story from Nairobi.’Salah is an African, they will never treat him like the Europeans’He has a lot of stories similar to the one in Kenya all across African continent with Ghana and Nigeria also being mentioned. Sogut also gave an example of one kid whoAnother great gesture of a great Man(e)Ozil’s agent thinks that success of African footballers in Europe are the additional motivation for such a behavior, and he points out to Sadio Mane, who provides for the whole village, or former Chelsea player Michael Essien, who was among the first to earn 70,000 pounds a week.“That’s when Ghana changed and said ”wow, we can do that, too”. How many players have you heard of coming from Africa, and getting a trial and signing a pro deal? I don’t know any and I’m 20 years in this business. It is forbidden under FIFA regulations the transfer of a player under 18, but they’re still doing it. It’s trafficking of minors, these kids are stranded at 16, 17 in Europe with nothing. A lot of players are not talking about it when it happens. They’re living illegally for a while. They are not saying they came for football, they are kind of embarrassed. They can’t go back home in terms of money. They took money to come here. We’re talking about 3,000-10,000 dollars in average for someone to be brought over for football” explained Sogut.21.45: (2.60) Italy (3.30) Germany (2.90)Apart from being a football manager, Sogut also has a doctorate in sports law and is a part-time author. He wrote two books and in one of them, named “Deadline”, he writes about nepotism in football business.“I’ve seen it everywhere and every day. I’ll give you an example from Bayern Munich. Karl-Heinze Rumenigge and Uli Hoeness are not actively there anymore. Rumenigge’s brother is a football agent, Rumenigge’s son, Roman, is also a football agent. Hoeness’s brother is a football agent, and not a long time ago Matthias Sammer was working for the club. His son is also a football agent. Now imagine all these agents lingering around the football club Bayern Munich. You’re already 1-0 down. You’re fighting against someone who has a family member in the club, what can you do? For four years I’ve been asking FIFA, can someone explain to me why someone that is representing a club deserves more money than someone who is investing years and years in a player? Working with them four, five years and then making a deal and just get three per cent. How does someone working in League One, League Two survive with just three per cent? And why does someone on the club side, who has just made two phone calls on the sale of a player gets ten per cent? Now you know what’s going on. Someone is protecting their interests there” said Sogut.
