First topic : The use of performance –enhancing drugs

Académie de Rennes
Situation d’évaluation 1 DNL EPS
Europe’s thirst for young African football players
a tin : une boîte de conserve
- to file one’s nails : se limer les ongles
FIFA : Fédération Internationale de Football Association
Europe’s thirst for young African players
(from Spiegel Online, June 04, 2010, by Christoph Biermann and Maik Grossekathöfer)
There is now a huge business to be made from football and it feeds on people's dreams of a better life
for their family. Inspired by players such as Didier Drogba and Samuel Eto'o, they will do everything to
raise the money, to send their boys to the West, sell their house, their life away, even when it means
putting their children’s education at risk. Brokers (1) are getting $3,000 per child and offering to
smuggle them out (2) on the promise that they will sign for a big club and earn a big salary. So many
boys have gone missing in this way. Yes, some of these boys have real talent, but it is not an agent
they need, it is a mother and father.
Charities and NGOs(3) across West Africa are now voicing their concern about the activities of illegal
football academies. The exploitation of young footballers has even been called a new 'slave trade' and
is leaving a tragic legacy of homeless young footballing hopefuls across Europe. 'This football-related
trafficking and the widespread creation of so-called schools of excellence is an area of huge growing
concern for Save The Children,' says Heather Kerr ' .The motivation for these children joining these
footballing schools and being trafficked out of the country is purely about money and that is not
surprising as these families are incredibly poor. '
One of these children is Effa Steve, 17, and a midfielder from Equatorial Guinea, who came to France
two years ago with the promise of a trial with Dijon. His mother sold her house to get him to Europe.
He did have a trial, but he suffered a knee injury and the club lost interest. He has since been living in
a high-rise squat in the Montrouge district of Paris. ‘I make money selling fake Prada handbags in the
markets around Montparnasse. I share the floor of an abandoned apartment with four others.” He told
me .Besides, if the club doesn't sign the player , the youngster is left to his own devices (4) as to how he
returns to Africa…
1 - Brokers: agents
2- To smuggle somebody out: to bring out of a country illegally 3-NGO : NonGovernmental Organization 4- To leave somebody to his own devices: to leave someone alone , without help or
advice
Questions
Après avoir analysé et commenté les documents constituant ce dossier et en vous appuyant sur vos
connaissances et vos expériences, vous répondrez aux questions suivantes :
1- What problem is raised in those documents and how do you react to it?
2- Give the many reasons for and consequences of that trade for those children and their families.