Retired Uganda international Mike Azira has explained how some European agents lure young African talents into bad contracts.
Azira, who recently retired from international football, stated some of the players accept the offers as they attempt to run away from poverty but end up suffering from a contract in which he has no negotiation power.
“These international agents come from Europe and offer young players large sums of money, relatively, to come to play for specific clubs,” Azira said as was quoted by Daily Monitor.
“The players leave and get stuck with bad contracts, with no negotiating power.
“They get thrown into academy teams and stuck there for the agents to scoop up fees and forget about their careers.
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“Because so many of us come from such poverty, it’s very easy for these agents to convince a young player to leave.
"Think about it: $100,000 sounds like a lot to you, but imagine what it sounds like to the player who lives with five other people in a one-bedroom and uses a milk bag for shooting practice.”
Azira further said that his journey has been shaped by destiny as he is one of the many players he grew up with from his Kampala neighbourhood that have made it as far as he has done.
“It’s where my journey had taken me. And along my path I have felt the hand of destiny many times,” he added.
“It’s all happening for a reason, I thought. But I do not confuse destiny with divine intervention, or anything like that. I know that I was not special as a child, or that I was that much more talented than any of the other boys I grew up playing soccer with.
“The story of how I got to where I am today is about kindness, honesty and love.
“And it’s an important story, I think. Because so many young soccer players in Africa are looked at like products, like numbers on a spreadsheet. Agents and representatives see them as an easy route to money.
“They dangle opportunities and dreams in front of them and drag them as long as they can - toward a goal that most of them will never get them to - and then leave them to pick up their lives on their own.
"For me, I could have gone down that route. But I was fortunate enough to meet a man named Ken Davies. He changed my life.”
Azira, who was part of Uganda’s Africa Cup of Nations contingent in 2017 and in the 2019 finals, also stated how key his parents have been in his career.
“My parents are heroes. Life is very different in Uganda,” he concluded.
“It’s hard to explain for those who haven’t been, or who haven’t struggled as we have. I would sometimes go weeks without seeing my dad because he was up so early and home so late. He was a taxi driver and mom was a tailor.
“As I said, we’re from the ghetto. There were six of us and we all lived in one bedroom. It wasn’t weird to me, it was just life. There was lots of crime in the area. Muggings and shootings all the time. As kids, we had to stay occupied, stay out of trouble.”
Azira retired from international football after Denis Onyango and Hassan Wasswa did weeks after Uganda failed to book a third straight Afcon ticket.
