By Duro Ikhazuagbe with agency reports
This Day Online (African Views on Global News)
Have you heard of some Nigerian players rushing to places like Malta or even India to play professional soccer? You probably do not know that some desperate ones may also find Cambodia attractive.
The story you are about to read is not fiction but the living nightmare two Nigerian youths in their 20s and a Ghanaian have found themselves in that South East Asian nation made popular by Communism and the United States attempt to install democracy.
While many Nigerians are wondering why would any reasonable professional footballer in the domestic league here jump ship to play, for instance, in a place like Iran and Sudan, upstarts like 21-year old Kenneth Akpueze, a midfielder and Samuel Gbenga (20), a striker, all in the search for the proverbial golden fleece have found themselves in what is nothing better than modern day slavery.
In an interview granted the Times of London the players narrated how they were tricked to where they are at the moment.
According to the two players, one of the several crooked businessmen passing off as football agents brokered the deal that has now turned life into nightmare for them.
In Gbenga’s words, he was tricked to Singapore on the pretext that a club was waiting to sign him on. “It was almost two years ago that I arrived in Singapore for a trial with a club there. My manager was supposed to meet me, but he wasn’t there and when I called, he said: ‘Sorry, I am in London for an appointment.’ I was going for a trial in Singapore. They then gave me such a short visa that I didn’t have time for the trial,” Gbenga told Times at the weekend.
Because the so called manager was not forthcoming, Gbenga then decided to explore opportunity provided by the Vietnamese League.
“I went to Vietnam instead; I had a friend who played there. I got a three-month visa for Vietnam and tried out for some clubs but everyone told me I was too short. So another friend in Cambodia invited me down here and I’ve been here ever since.”
Of course, as expected of a league in a nation where basic amenities are perpetually in want, the dream of reaping just like their compatriots in more lucrative settings of Western Europe has become nightmarish for Gbenga and Akpueze.
“The problem is money. The salary is too small. I have people at home expecting much from me: my parents, my friends. My father paid for my ticket and he is expecting that money back and some extra too.
“So we are playing here purely in the hope that someone will spot us so we can move forward in our careers. I want to go anywhere else but I would love to play in Singapore; I have had an invitation to go there but my club blocked the contact. My club never told me, it was only much later that I found out.”
The story of Kenneth Akpueze, a midfield player is not different from that of Gbenga. Unlike Gbenga, Akpueze flew into India hoping to sign a lucrative football club contract.
“I flew from Nigeria to India. I was en route to Australia. An agent in Nigeria had said that he would take me there to play: a good club, good money, everything. But in India, I couldn’t get an Australian visa. I stayed one month in Delhi in a hotel,” he stressed.
With the dream of going Down Under now a mirage, Akpueze, just like Gbenga also found himself in Cambodia as a last resort.
”The agent told me he had a friend in Cambodia and that I had to come here to meet him, that they played very good football here and that maybe I could make decent money here. I said: ‘OK.’ I didn’t have any alternative. I bought my Cambodia ticket and I met the friend here.”
But the beginning of the nightmare has just started to manifest. According to Akpueze, the so called friend the agent directed him to meet in Cambodia knows next to nothing about football and how the game is faring in their host country.
“He didn’t know anything about football, didn’t even know if they played football here,” was the shocking revelation that hit the aspiring pro player.
“I stayed here three or four months before I got a trial with a club and now I am here with Phnom Penh Empire. I never heard from my manager in Nigeria again.”
Instead of the good life that the player dreamt of, now he is forced to live on a salary of barely $250 a month. He can’t take good care of himself and there is no prospect in sight that his siblings back home will soon begin to reap from his sojourn abroad.
“I am paid $250 a month here that hardly takes me through half of the month. But I cannot return home. Africans never go home empty-handed. I cannot go home without making any money and I have to do something to take care of my family. If I go home now, my brother will ask: ‘How about my money?’ It was my brother who paid for my ticket here.
“Even now, my family back home are expecting money. They call me: ‘You have to send money.’ My younger brother rang recently, saying that my sister is very unwell and that I have to send money for her to go to a hospital. But I don’t have any money.”
Although the duo would like to move out of Cambodia their greatest worry now is how to showcase their skills to the outside world to attract good offers.
“So I’d like to move. Anywhere would be better than Cambodia. I am planning to go to Singapore to play. I’d love to go to Europe, but nobody sees you in Cambodia. No one sees Cambodian football on TV, no agents come here - so how would anyone see us?” was the bleak manner in which Akpueze concluded the chat.
The third African in the same mess as the Nigerians, is Linford Bernard a 26-year-old Ghanaian defender
“I left Ghana on January 19, 2006. I was meant to go to Thailand to play, I was never meant to come here and now I am stuck”.
“The problem is money. My money runs out before the end of the month and yet my family at home expect me to send money to them. If I don’t send money, I am nothing. If I don’t send money, I cannot say anything to explain myself. So I have to go to my manager here and borrow money from him. At the end of every month, I say: ‘I am never borrowing money again.’ But I always have to. Before embarking on this journey to no where, Bernard had a car and a decent apartment but the shame of having nothing to show for his ‘stint abroad’ has forced him to stay on, hoping that one day he will land a lucrative deal in Europe.
“When I was in Ghana, I had my own car. Selling the car helped pay for me to come here. If I go back, I won’t have money or a car and people will say: ‘Why did you leave?’
On a final note, the Ghanaian has a word of advise for young African footballers seeking greener pasture abroad: “I would never advise any African to come here to Asia. Only to Korea or Japan. Singapore is OK. I want to go to Europe. We are only playing here in order to go to play somewhere better.”
The story you are about to read is not fiction but the living nightmare two Nigerian youths in their 20s and a Ghanaian have found themselves in that South East Asian nation made popular by Communism and the United States attempt to install democracy.
While many Nigerians are wondering why would any reasonable professional footballer in the domestic league here jump ship to play, for instance, in a place like Iran and Sudan, upstarts like 21-year old Kenneth Akpueze, a midfielder and Samuel Gbenga (20), a striker, all in the search for the proverbial golden fleece have found themselves in what is nothing better than modern day slavery.
In an interview granted the Times of London the players narrated how they were tricked to where they are at the moment.
According to the two players, one of the several crooked businessmen passing off as football agents brokered the deal that has now turned life into nightmare for them.
In Gbenga’s words, he was tricked to Singapore on the pretext that a club was waiting to sign him on. “It was almost two years ago that I arrived in Singapore for a trial with a club there. My manager was supposed to meet me, but he wasn’t there and when I called, he said: ‘Sorry, I am in London for an appointment.’ I was going for a trial in Singapore. They then gave me such a short visa that I didn’t have time for the trial,” Gbenga told Times at the weekend.
Because the so called manager was not forthcoming, Gbenga then decided to explore opportunity provided by the Vietnamese League.
“I went to Vietnam instead; I had a friend who played there. I got a three-month visa for Vietnam and tried out for some clubs but everyone told me I was too short. So another friend in Cambodia invited me down here and I’ve been here ever since.”
Of course, as expected of a league in a nation where basic amenities are perpetually in want, the dream of reaping just like their compatriots in more lucrative settings of Western Europe has become nightmarish for Gbenga and Akpueze.
“The problem is money. The salary is too small. I have people at home expecting much from me: my parents, my friends. My father paid for my ticket and he is expecting that money back and some extra too.
“So we are playing here purely in the hope that someone will spot us so we can move forward in our careers. I want to go anywhere else but I would love to play in Singapore; I have had an invitation to go there but my club blocked the contact. My club never told me, it was only much later that I found out.”
The story of Kenneth Akpueze, a midfield player is not different from that of Gbenga. Unlike Gbenga, Akpueze flew into India hoping to sign a lucrative football club contract.
“I flew from Nigeria to India. I was en route to Australia. An agent in Nigeria had said that he would take me there to play: a good club, good money, everything. But in India, I couldn’t get an Australian visa. I stayed one month in Delhi in a hotel,” he stressed.
With the dream of going Down Under now a mirage, Akpueze, just like Gbenga also found himself in Cambodia as a last resort.
”The agent told me he had a friend in Cambodia and that I had to come here to meet him, that they played very good football here and that maybe I could make decent money here. I said: ‘OK.’ I didn’t have any alternative. I bought my Cambodia ticket and I met the friend here.”
But the beginning of the nightmare has just started to manifest. According to Akpueze, the so called friend the agent directed him to meet in Cambodia knows next to nothing about football and how the game is faring in their host country.
“He didn’t know anything about football, didn’t even know if they played football here,” was the shocking revelation that hit the aspiring pro player.
“I stayed here three or four months before I got a trial with a club and now I am here with Phnom Penh Empire. I never heard from my manager in Nigeria again.”
Instead of the good life that the player dreamt of, now he is forced to live on a salary of barely $250 a month. He can’t take good care of himself and there is no prospect in sight that his siblings back home will soon begin to reap from his sojourn abroad.
“I am paid $250 a month here that hardly takes me through half of the month. But I cannot return home. Africans never go home empty-handed. I cannot go home without making any money and I have to do something to take care of my family. If I go home now, my brother will ask: ‘How about my money?’ It was my brother who paid for my ticket here.
“Even now, my family back home are expecting money. They call me: ‘You have to send money.’ My younger brother rang recently, saying that my sister is very unwell and that I have to send money for her to go to a hospital. But I don’t have any money.”
Although the duo would like to move out of Cambodia their greatest worry now is how to showcase their skills to the outside world to attract good offers.
“So I’d like to move. Anywhere would be better than Cambodia. I am planning to go to Singapore to play. I’d love to go to Europe, but nobody sees you in Cambodia. No one sees Cambodian football on TV, no agents come here - so how would anyone see us?” was the bleak manner in which Akpueze concluded the chat.
The third African in the same mess as the Nigerians, is Linford Bernard a 26-year-old Ghanaian defender
“I left Ghana on January 19, 2006. I was meant to go to Thailand to play, I was never meant to come here and now I am stuck”.
“The problem is money. My money runs out before the end of the month and yet my family at home expect me to send money to them. If I don’t send money, I am nothing. If I don’t send money, I cannot say anything to explain myself. So I have to go to my manager here and borrow money from him. At the end of every month, I say: ‘I am never borrowing money again.’ But I always have to. Before embarking on this journey to no where, Bernard had a car and a decent apartment but the shame of having nothing to show for his ‘stint abroad’ has forced him to stay on, hoping that one day he will land a lucrative deal in Europe.
“When I was in Ghana, I had my own car. Selling the car helped pay for me to come here. If I go back, I won’t have money or a car and people will say: ‘Why did you leave?’
On a final note, the Ghanaian has a word of advise for young African footballers seeking greener pasture abroad: “I would never advise any African to come here to Asia. Only to Korea or Japan. Singapore is OK. I want to go to Europe. We are only playing here in order to go to play somewhere better.”
7 comments:
Hahaha you stupid nigger!!
250$ a month when the average salary is 30$ a month .. and you still can't make enough??
Stop going visiting the whores on street 51 if you want to save ...
Fucking nigger!!
Don't be so hard on the guy, 12:09. He's just another victim of Hollywood. It doesn't matter how much money he made, 2,500/month, or 25,000/month, he'll still be poor in his mind.
My Cambodian cousin who lives in Phnom Pehn stated that $500 per month is just enough for gas, food, cellphone bill, and rental. Please be fair to your follow human being. Go to Phnom Penh and try to rent/live under $250/mon to see if you will be there more than 1 month?
Well, if that was true, then Phnom Penh will be a gosh town, because only a few people make more than $500/month, everyone else died of starvation.
Gee! Cambodian people are not poor enough? If these Nigerians are so eager to make so much money and why the fuck they sign up for Cambodia football team? Maybe if these fucken Nigerians are a rocket sicientist, doctor, or engineer and maybe they will get pay more!
Somebody sent these fucken African a one way ticket out of Cambodia!
Go home or get the fuck up out!
Go do the job 2:45Pm, see how fuckup you are!
CPP care only for gulf!
To 11:52AM! Fucken moron!
What did you just said? Go do the job? What is that suppose to mean?
You want a blowjob? I am talking about football and you are talking about golf?
You are too much for me! Shaking my head!
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