To play at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, at Camp Nou, or at the Metropolitano Stadium; to wear the jersey of Real Madrid, FC Barcelona or Atletico Madrid; to be in the spotlight during world championships. This is what thousands of young aspiring soccer players around the world dream of. Yet for some athletes from Senegal, Guinea, Nigeria, Morocco and Tunisia, who manage to arrive in the land of Cervantes, dreams can quickly turn into an immense disappointment.

An increasing number of young migrants who are only 13 or 14 years old have for months been caught in the net of human traffickers. "By talking with colleagues across the country, we realized the number of cases is sharply increasing," said Juan José M., an investigator with the Spanish National Police on subjects related to human trafficking and minors in the region of Andalusia.

"We have reports from anonymous people, but also from many of the young people themselves who have been exploited and who now find themselves living on the streets in precarious conditions. They decided to contact the police to get help and stop other young people from getting tricked," Juan José M. said.

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Tidiane, 17 years old and originally from Guinea, thought he would achieve the dream of his life upon arriving in Spain, and play football as a professional. "I was contacted two years ago, when I was playing in a small club in Conakry. Several people approached me, telling me that I could become a professional player."

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'We were told not to talk to anyone'

Tidiane’s family raised money to pay a smuggler to bring their talented son to Spain. "He promised me a place in a Barcelona academy," Tidiane said.

"I was brought to Spain in March 2023 with documents saying that I had come on a school exchange trip, along with several other Guineans my age, and that we would be supported by an academy while continuing to go to school. When we arrived in Barcelona, we were separated and accommodated with other people, and we were told not to talk to the other people who lived in the building."

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The teenager sensed something was wrong. "After 15 days, we still hadn't started school or football training. They didn't tell us anything, and after a month and a half, we were asked to pay again, even though it hadn’t been planned... We were lost, so we fled late one night while everyone was sleeping."

On the streets, Tidiane no longer knew what to do, he had no money, and he was afraid of being arrested by the police. He had no official documents because his identity card had been confiscated by his smuggler when he arrived in Spain.

The young man scavenged for food and slept in parks and unsanitary places for five months. One day in October 2023, a worker from the Caritas relief organization spotted Tidiane and several other young people sleeping in a building under construction across the street from him. Tidiane was taken in charge by the Barcelona branch of the charity, which helped him learn Spanish, and put him back on the path to schooling.

"I don’t know what would have happened to me without them," he said. "My story is far too common in Spain, many of us end up in the clutches of ill-intentioned people who take advantage of youth and their dreams."

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Raising awareness to stop the phenomenon

The Spanish authorities are trying to understand the schemes used by traffickers to better protect young soccer players. "There is frequently the case of a young person who spends time in two or three European countries, like Spain, Portugal and Italy for example. He is later abandoned by his smuggler, who has no connections with the world of football," said M., the investigator.

"The trafficker just wanted to take the young person as a 'hostage', giving him the impression that he could join a professional club, while continuing to ask his family for money," he said.

A major police operation led to the arrest of five people from a network last month between Las Palmas, Córdoba and Madrid. The Spanish Football Federation now wants to shed light on the situation and raise awareness among clubs and academies.

"It is important to talk about what is happening, about these young people who are exploited and find themselves in great difficulty upon their arrival in Spain," said José Trigueiros, one of the members of the Training department, which supervises academies and youth training centers. "This is why we are preparing a prevention campaign because soccer, with all the attention it gets, has attracted the interest of traffickers," he added.

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According to Trigueiros, "the awareness actions aim to coordinate with the leagues of each autonomous community (the Spanish regions), associations in large cities, large clubs, but also in small academies in less populated regions of Spain, who are also in the sights of these human traffickers."

For Tidiane, who is being placed with a host family in the suburbs of Barcelona, the future is looking better. "I would not wish anyone to experience what I have been through. If my story can prevent someone from being caught up in trafficking networks, I would be happy. It is possible to achieve one’s dream of becoming a footballer, but you must avoid traps. I have not given up on my football dream, it’s still on my mind, despite everything I have gone through."

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