Where to Scout in African Football
In Africa, football is often considered as a path to a better life. Africa boast of abundantly talented footballers waiting to be discovered. There’re a lot of untapped potentials, the brightest of prospects, the rawest of gems, just waiting in the continent to be unearthed.
Morocco made history 18 months ago becoming the first African country to reach the World Cup Semi-final. This is a proof that the continent produces the very best. But this is what we see, when they become superstars, what we don’t see, is the work they put in to become one.
It took Morocco 13 years of work to reach that level of success. It wasn’t just the men’s football team, the women’s national team reached the Women’s African Cup of Nations (WAFCON) final. AS FAR went deep as well, when they finished third in the CAF Women’s Champions League, whilst Morocco will host the next African Cup of Nations for both the men and women.
However, scouting in Africa is different from Europe. The rates of development is very different across the globe, in South America, Europe and Africa, it all varies. Africa is a continent that requires years of bench-marking, development, planning and care for how players will transition to being successful, this is one of the barriers most top cubs in Europe face.
The big clubs are not ready to put in that much work but rather, quick success is what they need. If talents can be pulled with the way football is reduced to chaos and less orderly coaching in the continent, then it tells you a lot. African talents are there to be polished, refined and refurbished into finished articles.
It’s uniquely wonderful the talents Africa produce year in year out, especially with most clubs not having a scouting presence in the continent. No doubt, Africa is the most undervalued market in the globe. And it’s a known fact that there are only two ways of getting these talents to the big stage; through agents or by watching age grade international tournaments.
Nevertheless, we have had a lot of African stars make it to the big stage without playing professionally in Africa; from Zimbabwe’s Bruce Grobbelean ending up at Liverpool during the 1980’s to Cote d’Ivoire’s Didier Drogba conquering the bridge and becoming the king of Stamford Bridge to the city of Naples screaming the name of Victor Osimhen, a little boy who sold pure water along the streets of Ojota in Lagos State.
He lived in one of Lagos’ biggest refuse dumps, he dropped out of school to pursue his dream. He was rejected by many clubs, in fact, he was rejected by his Under-17 coach, Emmanuel Amunike, but when he was about leaving the camp, one of the team’s doctors told Amuneke, to try out, “the guy on green” and from that day, “the guy on green” has got the whole stadium chanting his name, “VICTOR… OSIMHEN.”
Despite African scouting being nuanced, which most times put off European clubs, sometimes the scouting process is cleverly contrived by African coaches or scouts to favour certain players for their own selfish interests. To my knowledge, not one club has more than a single scout based in Africa. If they have one at all, they are an outlier.
On the other plane, one scout is known for discovering raw talents in Africa, the influential Atta Aneke, the go-to-man. He was famously known for brokering Odion Ighalo’s move from Nigeria to Oslo club, Lyn in 2007. He was also involved in David Datro Fofana’s from Abidjan to Molde before he moved to Chelsea. Gift Orban is another talent that was discovered. He participated in a football trial organized by Ola Fowler in Lome, Togo, the hometown of his mum.
He made up his mind that if it didn’t go well, he will try to become an “Olokpo” a Nigerian word that means police officer. Fowler loved what he saw and invited Gift Orban to another trial in Uyo, Akwa Ibom. The trial in Uyo was set up by Emefie Atta Aneke. The trials was supposed to last for six days with players playing nine games to impress the scouts but after just two matches, Gift Orban was withdrawn.
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When asked why he withdrew Gift after just two matches, Aneke said, “There was no need keeping him there any longer… Gift scored three goals in one game and it was how. His confidence and the way he struck the ball, I instantly knew that this was a player that would go far.”
This was where is journey began and he was invited to Stabaek’s pre-season training camp and shockingly he didn’t impress any of the coaches. He returned to Nigeria disappointed at seeing his dreams shatter. But later on, to Gift’s surprise he was re-invited to Stabaek and he went on loan to Bison FC and he scored in every game and during the cup game he scored twice against Stabaek and that took him straight to Stabaek’s first team.
In just three months after turning full professional, Gent FC came calling. They spent €3 million on him and he went on to score three goals in three minutes in the Europa Conference League to set a record that got the whole world talking. And next up, was a big move to Lyon as he became the first Nigerian to play for Lyon.
Another player like most Nigerian young boys, Victor Okoh Boniface wanted to become a footballer and he relocated to Lagos to join Real Sapphire academy before earning a big move at the age of 18 to Norwegian club, Bodo/Glimt. After two weeks of signing with Glimt he got an injury and it was a big blow as it was just seven days away from the Under-20 Nations Cup, the same tournament that Jeremy Seethal discovered Mohamed Salah. A knee injury that tore his ACL in training which ruled him out for six months.
He finally made his debut for his new club as he returned with three games left of the season and scored a goal. The next season, Victor scored 6 goals and 3 assists in 24 games as he helped Bodo/Glimt win their first Norwegian League title. He had an agreement with Club Brugge only for him to wake up with a swollen knee and this time around he was ruled out for over 12 months. Things got worse as he lost his mum during this period.
Mind you, Boniface was barely 20, and he already had two career-threatening ACL and had lost his mum. In an interview with journalist Ojara Babatunde in April 2022, he said, “I lost interest in football, I forgot about my diets, I began to eat everything. I started living a normal life and I just wanted to be happy. I started partying and drinking.” He had a surgery and he got a call from his agent, who told him some club sporting directors were asking about him. This was the turning point.
Boniface came back the next season and scored a goal every two games for Glimt and this earned him a move to Belgium to join Union Saint-Gilloise (USG). He finished joint-top scorer in the Europa League with USG having scored 6 goals in 10 games and this was capped off with his performances against Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen where he scored against them, the German team splashed €20 million to get him to Germany.
And since he arrived in Germany, he has won the Bundesliga Rookie of the Month for four times and he ended up winning the rookie player of the season. He also won the Bundesliga Player of the Month for August and was voted into the EA SPORTS Bundesliga Team of the season.
It’s often rare for talents to emerge directly from African clubs and academies to the elite clubs in Europe. It is usually a rigorous cycle, driven by hard work, utter determination, dedication, integrity and sometimes “bribes,” that sees the auspicious young African talents undergo trials and get scouted by some of the best footballing agents sent to the continent by smaller clubs in Europe.
It is this “smaller clubs” who develop these players into a complete player. That is when the big whales in Europe come for them. In Metz, the club entered into an exclusive arrangement with Senegalese academy Generation Foot in 2003 and have invested around €1 million every year. Kalidou Koulibaly, Ismailla Sarr, Sadio Mané are products of this deal.
RB Leipzig is also known for getting Malian players- Amadou Haidara, Mohammed Camara, Sekou Koita. They get these players and nurture them before selling them to bigger clubs for good money. Swedish side, IFK in Gothenburg, struck up a relationship with Nigerian academy Tiki Taki and Alhassan Yusuf was the first talent to come through.
He went to Royal Antwerp in Belgium in 2021 and won the league. Nigerians won’t forget about him anytime soon, he stood out at the 2023 AFCON with his performance and his orange boots before getting injured. The lack of videos and data, as well as coverage of grassroot football in Africa, the difficulty in validating birth dates, agent representation and club officials even bribery and forgery has halted many rare talents from stepping out from Africa to the global stage.
The problem is that most times, the European scouts often go to the top academies in Africa like Kadji Sports academy in Cameroon, Diambars FC in Senegal, Mimos Sifcom Academy in Côte d’Ivoire, Mohammed VI academy in Morocco, West African football academy in Ghana, Midas football academy, Pepsi football academy, Kwara Football academy in Nigeria forgetting that some talents might not have an opportunity to be at the academy.
Recently, the Simoiben academy owned by the wife of Super Eagles’ star Moses Simon, Ibukun had scouts from Ligue 1 clubs Nantes and Nimes and a top agent named Willy who represents three teams in the French top flight. The scouts go to the top academies forgetting schools, colleges where many raw talents are just waiting for the opportunity to unleash. They are many talents who don’t have the resources or opportunity to attend screening or trials in Africa and these talented individuals often times go unnoticed in the continent or never to the world.
By: Phenom Akpan / @phenomakpan
Featured Image: @GabFoligno / ANP / Getty Images