Serious shortcomings in the way fake and rogue football agents are policed by the game’s authorities have been exposed after the Football Association were made aware of numerous players falling victim to hoaxers and losing out financially.
The problem, ongoing and widespread, revolves around people pretending to be licensed agents and taking money from aspiring players, usually from abroad, to arrange trials at English clubs.
The bogus agents thrive by building apparently authentic ‘profiles’ on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter and on the business network, LinkedIn.
Scammed: Guyana international Vurlon Mills was tricked by a pretend FIFA agent More from Nick Harris... Nick Harris: Murray and Co chase £1.5m as Wimbledon chiefs raise prize money to record £20m 20/04/13 Tiger got away with it because golfing rules allow for discretion 13/04/13 Nick Harris: FA investigate Rovers as civil war breaks out between senior executives 13/04/13 NICK HARRIS: Premier League stars at risk of ruin with £1bn in 'tax relief' schemes 23/03/13 All to play for in the League One battle of the basket cases 23/03/13 Nick Harris: Hammers mortgage £60m of TV money in bid to manage debts 16/03/13 Nick Harris: Is Suarez on the way to Atletico Madrid as Chelsea line up Falcao? 09/03/13 Nick Harris: No pay from PSG.. but Beckham reveals record £20million profit for 2012 02/03/13 VIEW FULL ARCHIVEOne victim was a 22-year-old Guyana international forward, Vurlon Mills, who paid £500 to somebody pretending to be a FIFA licensed agent for a trial at Bristol City that did not exist. His case and others were unearthed by a lengthy investigation by World Soccer magazine.
Their probe has prompted the FA to issue a warning on their website, yet both the FA and world governing body FIFA claim to be effectively powerless to prevent people being duped.
‘The FA advise players to notify police authorities in their home country,’ an FA spokesman told Inside Sport. ‘Most players targeted are overseas and, therefore, outside of the FA’s jurisdiction.’
The scam should be easily preventable because every licensed agent in the world has to provide contact details, including telephone numbers and email addresses, for publication on FIFA’s website.
Players contacted via published email addresses or telephone numbers should be able to have confidence that the agent is genuine. But many of the thousands of agents globally have provided only postal addresses. And of the 481 registered agents in England, 12 have no telephone or email details on the official FIFA list, and dozens more have only Hotmail or other generic email addresses, and no telephone contacts.
FIFA say it is the responsibility of the national associations who license the agents, to provide the full details for publication.
An FA spokesman said he could not explain why such details were missing for some English-based agents. He insisted that it was not possible for a hoaxer to license as an agent and use that credibility to scam people, but was unable to explain why that was impossible beyond suggesting ‘they are carefully checked’.
Did Pep string Roman along?Bayern Munich president Uli Hoeness has claimed that Pep Guardiola agreed to join the German giants last October — condemning the likes of Chelsea to three months of false hope that they might yet woo the most coveted manager in world football.
The former Barcelona boss left Camp Nou at the end of last season for a year-long sabbatical. Chelsea’s owner, Roman Abramovich, tried especially hard to tempt him with a massive salary offer and promises of player funds. The wooing went on into January this year, which was when Bayern confirmed their own deal with Guardiola.
Done deal: Pep Guardiola will be Bayern boss next seasonNow Hoeness has revealed that Guardiola first told him in 2010: ‘I can imagine one day working for Bayern.’ And the Bayern president says the deal was actually done last October, after he went to New York to see Guardiola. ‘Shall I sign the contract now?’ Guardiola asked Hoeness, who claims he replied: ‘That’s not a bad idea.’
Rovers' Taiwan takeawayA British-Indian football coach invited by Blackburn’s owners to attend training at the club — and linked to the Ewood Park manager’s job more than once — is leaving Britain to take up a new role with the Taiwan FA.
Judan Ali, 39, a long-time coach in amateur and youth football who has also attended an FA scheme to encourage coaches from diverse ethnic backgrounds, spent time at Blackburn on the invitation of Rovers’ ‘global adviser’, Shebby Singh, when Henning Berg was manager.
Berg had no idea why Ali was there and asked Singh to tell him to stay away. ‘The timing wasn’t good,’ Ali told Inside Sport. ‘It would have been good to see if he [Berg] might have taken some ideas from me. I was disappointed I wasn’t able to take any coaching there.’
Going overseas: Judan Ali taken a job with the Taiwan FAAli stresses that he was never offered the manager’s job, although speculation was rife that he had been. ‘Even if I had been offered a job, I wouldn’t have put myself under that pressure [having never managed a senior team],’ he said.
Instead, he will become Head of Elite Football Development in Taiwan, a nation currently ranked No 174 in the world. The Taiwan FA website says Ali is a former youth coach at Blackburn, but Ali says this is a mistake by the website.
Invitation: Blackburn Global advisor Shebby Singh asked Ali to watch trainingAli and the Taiwan FA say the aim is to implement a long-term structure to get all Taiwan’s age groups to their respective world championships. Ali says he intends to lead Taiwan’s men to the 2022 World Cup.
‘I’ve always said I either want to take a European club to the Champions League final or take a country below the world’s top 100 to a World Cup finals,’ he says. ‘My heart is in this 110 million per cent.’
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