Legal and regulatory vulnerabilities as an inadvertent facilitator of football trafficking

• In Event: Crime in sports: manifestations of organized crime and white collar crime in the sport sector

Abstract

Research aim

Football trafficking, which encompasses trafficking in football and trafficking through football, entails the trafficking of persons through exploiting the football transfer system (Poli, 2010). Although both can be classified as human trafficking, trafficking in football leads to the athletes actually participating in trials or signing exploitative contracts at club(s), while trafficking through football ends in abandonment or exploitation in other sectors (UNICEF, 2019). Even though legal research is steadily growing (Nkang, 2021) the topic is deemed to be under-researched (Jardine et al., 2021) and the need to re-evaluate the rules and regulations in place has repeatedly been reiterated (Drywood, 2015; Unicef, 2019). This research, through the identification of risk indicators for football trafficking and linkage of those indicators with laws and regulations, bridges the aforementioned research gap. Essentially, where rules do not adequately address the risks for trafficking, they could be branded as vulnerable as they may inadvertently facilitate the crime.

Method

The data is gathered through analysis of relevant legal and regulatory texts at (inter)national level. Additionally, literature and documentation on the topic is reviewed.

Results

While governments and football federations have certainly taken action and are currently adapting rules which may positively affect the issue, various risks and corresponding vulnerable rules could be identified. For instance, academies - i.e. training centers for aspiring footballers (Ume-Ezeoke, 2018), football agents (Esson, 2015) as well as recruitment practices of clubs (Jardine et al., 2021), including the organization of trials (Mason et al., 2019), have all been directly linked with football trafficking, yet they remain inadequately regulated by the - albeit competent - Fédération Internationale de Football Association. Through identification of vulnerable rules on inter alia football agents, transfers and work permits, governments and football federations can remedy those vulnerabilities and possibly prevent trafficking occurrences in the future.

Authors

• Louis Vandercruysse, Ghent University

• Tom Vander Beken, Professor and director of the Institute for International Research on Criminal Policy (IRCP), Ghent University

• An Vermeersch, Ghent University

• Annick Willem, Ghent University