The HSV star Bakery Jatta realized their dream of Europe. Although the public prosecutor is investigating him, many African talents emulate him. You want out of poverty – and subscribe to shady player agents.
For Bakery Jatta there was probably no other way out (you can find out more about the case here). A dilemma that almost inevitably led to even bigger problems. But above all it was one thing: a vicious circle. A vicious circle in which the Hamburger SV footballer was stuck and from which he could no longer get out.
When Jatta came to Germany as a refugee in 2015, he allegedly gave the authorities a wrong name and a wrong date of birth. As an unaccompanied minor refugee, he had a better chance of being tolerated. The public prosecutor calls it an “offense against the Residence Act”. A criminal offense. And yet often the only way out for young people. Using their own health, they take on the heaviest strains in order to have the chance in Europe of what is commonly called a “normal life” here.
Jatta’s story (that threatens the HSV professional now) moved, touched many people in Germany. Grew up under the most adverse conditions, escaped the chaos of war, here became a successful athlete without any previous football training. With this background, with this story, could Jatta have admitted that everything wasn’t right?
Regular players: In 123 appearances for HSV so far, Jatta has scored 16 goals and provided twelve assists. (Source: Lobeca / imago images)
That was exactly the vicious circle in which Jatta was caught. To change his résumé for the better, he had to change it slightly.
Now the Hamburg public prosecutor is investigating. She accuses him of “offenses against the Residence Act in four cases as well as indirect false certification in one other case”. Is Jatta really called “Bakary Daffeh”? Is he three years older and an experienced professional footballer? So isn’t it such a beautiful story? A vicious circle that started early on in African football – but very different than expected.
Observations from an Africa expert
The first time I had doubts about the history of the HSV top performer, which was widely processed in the media, it was rumored that he had played in Gambia without football boots. The old – and largely false – cliché that Africans go through life barefoot – had someone put it in their mouth? Or had Jatta herself long ago understood that the Germans want to hear precisely such stories about life in Africa? The only thing missing was stories about lions he encountered every day on the way to school.
My own experiences on the continent could not have been more contradicting this dusty picture from bygone times. Talented teenagers are encouraged in Africa, albeit on a completely different level than in high-tech and well-equipped youth training centers in Europe. As simple as the situation may be, basic equipment – including football boots – is provided.
It is obvious that African football stars come from poor backgrounds. It is also not a cliché that African children play football barefoot. But even within African societies it is often the poorest who make it the furthest in sport. “The poor have the most bite,” I have often heard there, “they have no choice and must not fail.”
Football school in Burkina Faso (archive picture 2007): Basic equipment is provided in African countries. (Source: imago images)
This urge for social and sporting advancement is the result of both poverty and the local football culture. Of decisive importance for this are the “talent promoters”, the “patrons”, who play a decisive role in the sporting and private lives of young people. They are something like uncle, patron, sponsor, investor and puller in personal union. Sometimes they are youth coaches, sometimes also biological relatives with the necessary change. Often, however, it is African player agents who not infrequently have a second – European – passport.
The “patron” expects a return
This “patron” not only takes care of the talent, but often also takes care of his family. He buys soccer shoes for “his” player – and pays his siblings’ school fees. If the talent comes from rural areas, they often live with their sponsor in the city. Sometimes the players are even officially adopted.
And for this all-encompassing supply program, for this “investment”, a “return” is expected at some point. Because of this, African talent is under tremendous pressure. You can feel it at every youth tournament, this tension, this seriousness with which the teenagers “go to work”. A sense of duty and adulthood that doesn’t quite fit the child’s faces.
Paul Nehf, 31 years old, studied oriental studies, worked as a journalist and later scouted football talents in Africa. Today he has close business ties with Africa in various fields.
The success rate is clear – just as very few make the leap from the youth of FC Bayern to the professionals, so only a fraction of the African talents make it into big world football. In the worst case, there is nothing financially left for the “patron” either. In West Africa, where most of the well-known players and Bakery Jatta come from, even the best often only earn the equivalent of $ 200 a month. And not a cent of it is left after a career. Quite clearly: Because a lot is at stake for everyone, all possibilities for the dream of Europe are exhausted.
Scouting in Africa: definitely not a goalkeeper!
The royal road – to be discovered by a European club – is the exception and mainly reserved for the talents who come from the few elite football schools. Or those who were lucky enough to take part in an international tournament with their national team, ideally an U17 or U20 world championship. Most of the Africans we cheer on in Europe, on the other hand, come from small clubs and have spent their youth on bumpy sand and scree – even if only rarely barefoot.
But even those who are lucky enough to be able to play in front of a scout or a player’s agent cannot rely on their talent alone. Because the scouting of many clubs that I was able to observe in Africa is more like a grid search: wingers or strikers are popular, by no means goalkeepers. The profile is always the same: the player should be fast and powerful – an African Xavi, on the other hand, would have a hard time.
Most important, however, is age: under no circumstances older than 20 years. The problem with this is that the age corridor for African talent is restricted in several ways. Fifa prohibits intercontinental transfers under the age of 18. And in Europe, a 20-year-old is almost too old to start professional football. What remains is a period of about two years – not a lot of time, when it takes a lot of luck to be observed by a scout at all.
Half the squad failed the age test
So the solution in countries where the vast majority of births take place at home and without certification is: old age trickery. For example, those who pretend to be of legal age for three years significantly extend the age corridor and increase their chances of being discovered. It only gets complicated once you are registered with Fifa because you played for the youth national team, for example.
Africa connoisseur: Paul Nehf himself worked as a scout on the continent. (Source: private)
Based on my experience, I assume that a lot of African footballers of the wrong age play in Europe, and I’ve heard countless stories about them. But how do you deal with the question of the true age of African talent?
The investigative way is medical age tests, which are now mandatory at international youth tournaments, among other things. I remember a qualifying tournament for the U17 Africa Cup a few years ago: The substitutes’ bench was completely orphaned for some teams because half the squad had failed the test.
Top talent with osteoarthritis
There is disillusionment, perhaps a little indifference, among the scouts when it comes to this topic. After all, you want to assess your footballing potential, not work as a detective. Some of them are forced to play the age game against their own club if they are convinced of a player. An experienced Italian explained to me that he only had two categories of his own: “Baby” or “Too old”. The “babies” are those who look young enough that unpleasant surprises are not to be expected at the medical check-up. He also had an anecdote ready: “We once hired a defense attorney who was later constantly injured. The diagnosis was osteoarthritis!”
Another hurdle for African talent are regulations that make life even more difficult. A player who has an invitation to a trial training session in Europe first has to get a visa through the embassy – if there is an embassy of the relevant state in his country at all. A Cameroonian, whom a club from the Czech Republic had invited to a trial training session in Prague, once told me that he first had to travel illegally to Nigeria by boat in order to be able to visit the Czech embassy there.
And of course the aforementioned FIFA age limit of 18 years is a problem for transfers from continent to continent. Although it is logical in Europe with regard to the protection of minors, it fails to recognize the sad reality in Africa, where far more children have to work at the age of twelve than go to school at the age of 18. If they could move to Europe at the age of 16, they would have time to adapt to the new environment in the junior division and to develop sportily.
“Without him I wouldn’t be here”
The fact is: In the end, the vast majority of talents have no chance without their “patrons”, who like to be portrayed as smugglers or blackmailers. However, it is not that simple. I once sat with an African soccer star, Champions League player and captain of his national team. A reflective, experienced man. He knew full well that his “patron” was ripping him off. Still, he was loyal to him. The reason? “I wouldn’t be here without him.”
Talent alone is only sufficient in exceptional cases. If Bakery Jatta is actually Bakary Daffeh, then he has played for the Gambian U20 national team and for the most successful club in Senegal. But in the end he needed – with or without a “patron” – a refugee boat to realize his dream of a professional footballer in Europe. There was no other way out.
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