At just 15 years old, Jean Chrisologue Bonang has already set a goal in life. "I want to be like Sadio Mané, he was my age when he left the village and now he has saved his family from all difficulties," she says with a smile. Born in Bignona, in the south of Senegal, he shares an apartment with 13 other young footballers in Guediawaye, on the outskirts of Dakar, all of them signed by the club of this city with the hope that one day they can succeed in Europe. They train, watch games, play for a while, go back to training. His life revolves around football. It is the dream shared by thousands of African children and it is, at the same time, a flourishing business. It is the story of a few successes and thousands of failures.
The sun begins to fall. Low tide exposes miles of wet sand on the huge beach linking Guediawaye to the capital. In a jiffy, a legion of young people occupies all the space available in improvised soccer pachangas. Football, in Africa, is omnipresent. And the players who succeed in European clubs, true heroes of flesh and blood, inhabit the yearnings of the chavalería.
To understand this passion, you have to travel to Bambali, a town of about 15,000 inhabitants in the Sedhiou region, in the south of the country. In this small agglomeration of houses located next to the Casamance River, a boy named Sadio Mané was born 31 years ago who took advantage of any distraction from his parents to go kick a ball. His rise to glory was meteoric. After triumphing at Liverpool and leading his team to be champions of Africa, today he is one of the stars of Bayern Munich. He is the best African player of recent years.
Children at the Bambali sand football field in southern Senegal, where national team star Sadio Mané started playing as a child. Alfredo Chalice
Players of the Espoirs de Guediawaye, with the Spanish scout resident in Senegal Raúl Martínez.Alfredo Cáliz
Training of interns of the Generation Foot academy.Alfredo Cáliz
In Bambali, his footprint is everywhere. He financed the new classrooms of the secondary school, where scholarships to the best students; built a health centre to spare its neighbours long and costly journeys; He renovated the town's main mosque, where his uncle serves as imam, and paid for the installation of a telephone antenna and a gas station. Every year, during Ramadan, he gives a sack of rice and about 75 euros to each family. Omar Diatta, a municipal official, was his playmate. "It has made us understand that football is not just fun," he says. "We're so proud of him. What he has done for Bambali is enormous", adds Mamadou Mané, president of the youth association, "he is a reference not only for his talent, but for his generosity". Every time Sadio Mané plays a game, the neighbors gather around a giant screen. "People come from all over, on important occasions we organize readings from the Koran to support it," Mané adds. In the coolness of the colonnaded porch of his newly built house thanks to his nephew, Imam Talibó Mané, the footballer's uncle, recalls his childhood years. "He was a kind child, respectful of his elders. It hasn't changed since. For us it is much more than football, it is determined to set a moral example," he says.
But that kid who played football well could be any of the hundreds of thousands of kids who roam across Africa today. He had talent, no one doubts that, but he needed a chance. At the top of a desert hill near Lake Rosa, an hour's drive from Dakar, there is an 18-hectare enclosure that has two natural grass fields, residential area, dining room, changing rooms, secondary school, offices and weight room. It is Generation Foot, Senegal's most famous football academy, from which the country's best players have emerged in the last decade, including a certain Sadio Mané whose photo presides over the trophy hall. It was here that he got his chance.
The boom of academies
February 2022. In an atmosphere of unleashed euphoria, hundreds of thousands of people crowd the sidewalks of the streets of Dakar to watch a bus pass by. Inside travel the members of the national team, who have just won the Africa Cup of Nations for the first time in their history. This was just the beginning of a historic year. In the following 14 months, Senegal was proclaimed continental champion under 23, under 20 and under 17, a success never achieved by another country and that is largely explained by the boom of private academies such as Aspire, Diambars, Dakar Sacré-Coeur, Oslo FA, Darou Salam and, of course, Generation Foot, which nurtures national teams at all levels. In just a decade it has gone from precarious dirt fields, poorly trained coaches and poorly fed young people to schools with professionals at the forefront who have nutritionists, trainers and quality facilities.
Alpha Amadou Touré is a 16-year-old teenager, slender but robust. In 2019, a scout from Generation Foot saw him play at Kaolack and offered to come and live at the academy. "I didn't think about it too much, very few of us have this opportunity," says the boy, who dreams of reaching the Premier League, the goal of many. The training center was born in 2000 and currently has 120 young people, most between 12 and 18 years old, who have all expenses covered. At the forefront of everything is Mady Touré, a former player who started the project with a table and two balls. Today it has an agreement with FC Metz, a French club that finances the academy in exchange for having preferential right to sign two youngsters each year.
Mamadou Yoro Diop, 18, who has signed a contract with Rayo Majadahonda. Alfredo Chalice
Jean C. Bonang, admirer of Sadio Mané.Alfredo Cáliz
Jacques Roger, 17, Espoirs player and Real Madrid supporter.Alfredo Cáliz
Seydou Diagne, from Espoirs. Alfredo Chalice
"We train players, but also people. It's not just football, it's also discipline and education. Nine out of 10 do not make it to Europe and we have to prepare them for that moment," says Touré. In the secondary school that is inside the academy, 80 children park their boots for a few hours to study Spanish, mathematics, computer science or literature. Many children come to Generation Foot after dropping out, literacy classes were introduced for them. Vocational training classrooms are also planned to open in the coming months.
In parallel to the boom of the academies and the successes of their national teams, Senegal has seen the arrival of hundreds of scouts and international agents. It is not a new phenomenon on the continent. Dozens of African players have triumphed in Europe throughout history, such as Liberian George Weah, the only one to win the prestigious Ballon d'Or; Cameroonian Samuel Eto'o, Malian Yaya Touré or Ivorian Didier Drogba. But Senegal is fashionable. "From France and Belgium there always were, but now every day they appear from Spain, Italy, Norway, Sweden or Germany. Interest is growing. Before the boys only had physicality, but now their technical level has risen thanks to the best facilities and training systems, which have evolved, "says Raúl Martínez, a Spanish scout who after touring several African countries settled in 2022 in Dakar.
It's seven o'clock in the morning. The players of the youth Espoirs de Guediawaye start a training match. We must take advantage of the fact that the sun is not yet tightening and that the municipal field, of artificial turf, is free at this time. Raul Martinez observes everything and follows with special attention the spiky Yoro Diop, 18, who has signed a contract for three seasons with Rayo Majadahonda. "I've been following him for months, he's improved a lot this year. The big challenge will be his adaptation, everything will be new to him, the city, the meals, the schedules, the discipline. The kids have huge expectations, but they have to learn to be patient," says Martinez.
Humble families
The vast majority of players come from humble families and signing a contract with a European club can not only change their lives, but their entire environment. The amounts that the boy will receive range from the minimum wage stipulated in each country to tens of thousands of euros a year, plus the transfer. "It depends on many aspects, what team it is, the duration of the contract, the talent shown by the player," says Martinez. From the sale of the youngster, a maximum of 10% goes to the agent or representative, according to the new FIFA rules, who in turn pays the scout. Then there are the rights or compensation for training that is paid to the clubs or academies where the player has been registered since the age of 12. In the case of Europe, they range between 10,000 and 90,000 euros. Overall, the business moves millions.
Fran Castaño, a football lover who was a tactical analyst for CD Leganés, chose Ghana over Senegal. There he opened his own academy in 2017. "A big difference between Africa and other places like Europe or Latin America is that, with few exceptions, the big clubs don't usually have lower categories. So, the kids play in neighborhood teams with very few means and without professional structures to help them improve. That's where these private academies come from," he says. In its center there are about 30 children interned, between 12 and 18 years old, and a team of 15 professionals. "They live, sleep, eat and train here. We force them to continue their studies," explains Castaño.
Gnaly Gomis and Moussou Mansaly, players studying at Bambali High School, funded by Senegalese player Sadio ManéAlfredo Cáliz
Young people play on Yoff beach, north of DakarAlfredo Cáliz
Training match between youth and seniors of the Espoirs de Guediawaye. Alfredo Chalice
Players of the Espoirs de Guediawaye youth rest after a training session at the municipal stadium Ibrahima Boye, in Guediawaye.Alfredo Cáliz
The darker contours of this business are well known to Jean Claude Mbvoumin. "There are thousands of African children who arrive in Europe deceived by unscrupulous people or by the clubs themselves, who, when the tests do not go well, discard them and are abandoned to their fate," says this former Cameroonian player creator of the NGO Foot Solidaire. There are scammers who present themselves as intermediaries and charge families for the paperwork to take them to Europe. Since 2001, FIFA has banned the signing of minors.
Some are even willing to risk their lives. On December 4, 2019, a cayuco bound for the Canary Islands was shipwrecked off the coast of Mauritania. About 100 people were killed, almost all Gambians from a small town called Barra. Among them were Yunusa Cissé, Dauda Fall and Pa Ousmane Diop, three underage players from the Rising Stars Football Academy who had Europe etched in their eyes. In October 2020, 14-year-old Doudou Faye died in a dinghy trying to achieve his football dream. His father, who gave him the money, later declared: "He was my firstborn, I wanted to open the doors of success for him, not to do him any harm."
"We're talking about children, not merchandise. They need protection," adds Mbvoumin. The last census conducted by Foot Solidaire dates back to 2014 and speaks of some 15,000 young players who left Africa that year. "It's an uncontrollable phenomenon. States need to be more vigilant. In Morocco and Algeria there are thousands of young footballers trapped," adds the activist. In recent years, the list of destination countries has expanded to include Eastern Europe, Asia or Brazil, where monitoring mechanisms are more lax.
Ousmane Mané, director of the Bambali institute, slips another complaint. "All the investment that this town has received is very good, we are very grateful. But mentalities must be changed. This course we started with 846 students and only 796 remain. The dropout rate is very high, the boys just want to take the cayuco and leave because they know that nobody is going to get a job by going to high school," he laments. Jean Chrisologue Bonang, the boy from Bignona who signed for Espoirs de Guediawaye, combines football with classes. "You have to have a plan A and a plan B," he says. A league shows that it is smart.