The pitfalls of a football career in Cambodia

(Photo: AP)

May 24, 2010
ABC Radio Australia

The sudden death of a Nigerian soccer player during a game in Phnom Penh earlier this month has raised questions about foreign players who migrate to Cambodia in the hope of securing a football contract. Mostly Nigerian, they arrive with expectations of big money and the chance to be drafted into the more prestigious leagues in neighbouring Thailand and Vietnam. But for many, what they find is disappointment and hardship.

Presenter: Liam Cochrane
Speakers: Maxwell Woko, Nigerian soccer player; Ken Gadaffi, president of the Nigerian Community Association; Andy Brouwer, sports reporter for the Phnom Penh Post; May Tola, deputy general secretary at the Cambodian Football Federation

Click here to listen to the audio program (Windows Media)

COCHRANE: As the day's heat cools into evening at Phnom Penh's Olympic Stadium, dozens of small soccer matches take place in the carpark outside the ground. But one is different - all the players here are African.

They wear bright yellow and red shirts and play a fast-paced game of 5-on-5.

They call this corner of gravel San Siro after the stadium A.C Milan play at. They say it's a place for strong macho players, but actually this is where the players who can't find a team in the Cambodian league come to play each night.

Amidst the dust there is frustration and disappointment.

MAXWELL WOKO: My name is Maxwell Woko from Nigeria, so I came to Cambodia, that was last year 2009, February 14th, so I came to this place with my manager. He brought me here and I only spend two weeks in this place, then after the two weeks, he would take me out from this country. So at the end of the day, I found myself in a critical condition. All what he told me did not not fulfill the promise.

COCHRANE: That promise has been made to dozens of African footballers, mostly from Nigeria.

Ken Gadaffi is president of the Nigerian Community Association.

KEN GADAFFI: Football is a passion in Africa and so much of them leave the continent, going to Asia, to Europe, with the hope of securing sort of greener pastures. So I think their motivation is born from the fact that they come to Cambodia, hoping to tie up lucrative deals.

COCHRANE: But lucrative deals simple don't exist. The best any player in Cambodia can hope for is a contract with one of the 10 premier league clubs - receiving accommodation, food and a few hundred dollars a month. The league limits the number of foreign players each club is allowed, leaving around 100 African players vying for just 30 positions. For Maxwell Woko, the search for a contract soon turned sour, when his manager abandoned him.

MAXWELL WOKO: When he took money from me at the airport, then he would take you to hotel, then dump you at the hotel.

COCHRANE: It sounds almost like trafficking in footballers?

MAXWELL WOKO: Yeah, yeah, just like trafficking.

COCHRANE: Andy Brouwer is a football journalist for the Phnom Penh Post.

He says that while the African players come to Cambodia seeking fame and fortune, they've helped boost the standard of the game.

ANDY BROUWER: They just have more experience, they are more physically strong and they usually form the spine of any of teams they play for, so we're talking central defender, central midfield, central striker and so they have a big influence on the games.

COCHRANE: Some foreign players are so desperate to get onto the pitch, they play for free.

That was the situation for 25-year old Wilson Mene, playing without a contract for Prek Pra Keila.

In early May, 25 minutes into a match, Wilson Mene collapsed on the pitch and could not be revived - killed by a suspected heart attack.

Some, like Ken Gadaffi, believe poor living conditions contributed to his death.

KEN GADAFFI: There are questions to how has been feeding, has he been receiving the right nutrition to withstand the rigours of playing on such intense condition.

COCHRANE: Wilson Mene's death has forced the Cambodian Football Federation to review its rules for foreign players.

May Tola is deputy General Secretary of the Federation.

MAY TOLA: Next time or may be next year we will be more firm on the contract, make sure that the club treat the player fairly.

COCHRANE: However, football reporter Andy Brouwer believes that the hardships faced by African players are no different to those faced by Cambodian footballers.

ANDY BROUWER: I get a little annoyed when I hear that the African players say that they are treated badly, but to be perfectly honest with you, as far as I am concerned they are treated exactly the same as the Cambodians.

COCRHANE: Back on the gravel track outside Olympic Stadium in Phnom Penh, Maxwell Woko is still angry at the agent, Robinson Oyebo, who brought him to Cambodia.

He says the agent is now back in Nigeria, possibly bringing more footballers to Cambodia.

Maxwell Woko says they should think twice.

MAXWELL WOKO: I have to advise them that they should not make any movement to come to Cambodia.

COCHRANE: With no money for a plane ticket home, 25-year old Maxwell Woko, sees just one path ahead.

MAXWELL WOKO: I'm sticking ahead with my career, my football career.

Living Nightmare for Two Nigerian [Football] Players in Cambodia [-Even pro football players complain about low salary in Cambodia]

10.30.2007
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.”