Researchers push to bring sports trafficking out of the shadows

Trafficking in sport remains largely invisible and, as a result, is ill-defined and largely unchallenged.

“There’s limited research. What puzzles us is why this problem remains invisible?” said Serhat Yilmaz, a senior lecturer in sports law at Loughborough University, in a session on the last day of Play the Game 2025.

“It’s hidden, so we don’t talk about it, we don’t research it, and we don’t see it. And if you want to legislate and set policy, we need to define it. We did a global consultation exercise talking to parliamentarians, who said we need to know what we are looking at.”

Yilmaz, Loughborough University, and the charity Mission89 contributed to the Global Thematic Report on Sport Trafficking, which was published at the end of 2024. The report sought to define the nature of sport trafficking and identified three types: trafficking in, through and around sport.

Yilmaz said further research is needed to understand the business model and other criminal acts associated with sports trafficking.

Influx of players in India is poorly understood

Tarun, an assistant professor at India’s Gujarat National Law University, agreed that trafficking is largely ignored in his country too, despite the fact that India has regulations against trafficking in place, the earliest of which dates to the 1956 Immoral Traffic Prevention Act.

“Everything is hunky dory when it comes to the legal regulation, but sports, unfortunately, are not part of this and not mentioned in any of these acts,” said Tarun, and pointed to the boom in sports academies.

He added: 

“No one knows how these academies are functioning. The private academies that get a lot of players are not regulated at all. People have taken this very lightly.”

A rise in foreign players was also anticipated in India, where professional games from cricket to football are booming. How these players are being brought into India needs to be understood and regulated, but must be region-specific. 

“Don’t copy and paste global standards, as the community there is very different,” added Tarun.

Football should be integrated into African nations' plans on human trafficking

Brian Wesaala, the Kenyan founder and chief executive officer of The Football Foundation for Africa (FFA), agreed that players from Africa would be heading to India to service this growth in sports.

“We have a structural development issue in Africa, and we need to stem the problem at the source,” said Wesaala. 

"No one knows what these scouts are doing. These new [FIFA] agents’ exams were rejected in many countries, but have some of the highest pass rates in Africa. That is the contradiction.”

The solution, proposed Wesaala, is a Football as Infrastructure (FaI) approach that would make oversight of the source of trafficking problems part of wider solutions. 

“If academies become part of the infrastructure, then governments can regulate,” added Wesaala. “We need regulated talent pathways. We cannot keep silos of data in the sport sector.”

Wesaala’s FaI approach puts football at the centre of allied areas including employment, innovation, tourism, entertainment, health, education, diplomacy and social cohesion.

Wesaala proposes specific solutions for African governments: classifying football as part of a nation’s infrastructure, creating ministerial task forces linking sport, migration, and interior ministries, and setting up a Football Migration Code of Conduct.

Football should be integrated into African nations'  National Action Plans on human trafficking and should extend accountability further.

“Europe is a destination for African labour, but what are they doing about it?” asked Wesaala. 

“We need to have those conversations. The governments and institutes that enable these crimes to happen should also be held to account. I can’t remember the last time a player trafficker has been convicted,” he said.