A tipster contacted us suggesting we should take a look at a new soccer academy which had been set up in Cape Town, South Africa. In contrast to other sites, we were able to send our own journalist to uncover the scandal and place the story with one of the UK's leading daily newspapers.
The rape of Africa - 'These academies will bleed our continent dry of talent'
For the kids who are plucked from the South African townships and provided with accommodation, an education, first-class coaching and a mentor in the form of an English Premier League star, the Africa Soccer Developments academy is the stuff of dreams.
A chance to escape abject poverty; a chance to rescue their families, too. A chance, even, to follow in the footsteps of Benni McCarthy and lift the European Cup.
But for Ian Wright and the Premier League players who have chosen to invest in a project that was set up in Cape Town in April, it’s not a bad deal either. It’s a chance, it would seem, to make a few quid. A modest risk for a Premier League footballer, with the chance of a big return.
Mike Steptoe, a Leicester businessman and the academy’s founder, refused to reveal the figures involved on Monday, but the potential profits are enormous. It might cost somewhere in the region of £80,000 to develop a youngster they take on at 14, but he could then command a transfer fee running into millions when he is sold to a European club at 18.
For the investor, the deal is a simple one. Cover the cost of the player’s time at the academy and get 40 per cent of the first transfer in return, followed by 10 per cent of any sell-on transfer.
When Brad Friedel set up an academy in his native Ohio, Aston Villa’s goalkeeper simply wanted to give something back. Like the Cape Town academy it is free for the students to attend — at a cost of around $35,000 a year — but Friedel made a point of making it a nonprofit organisation.
‘The game of youth soccer has gotten to a point where there are people in this business to make money,’ said Craig Umland, the academy’s chief operating officer. ‘This is about Brad giving back to a game that gave him so much.’
In Cape Town, however, while the cash that is injected into the project by Wright, Julio Arca, Stephen Warnock, Alex Song, Danny Collins, Mamady Sidibe and Mart Poom could, indeed change lives. It could enrich their lives, too. Players making money out of younger players.
Jerome Anderson, the London-based football agent who represents Wright, Warnock and Poom, also has an involvement in the project. But that has not stopped the chief executive of the South African FA branding the project as immoral. Raymond Hack told Sportsmail that the academy is a clear breach of regulations introduced earlier this year that demand all academies in South Africa be endorsed by SAFA.
But for Hack it is more than that. It is, in his opinion, exploitation of an untapped market in an underdeveloped country that is hoping to use the World Cup as a springboard to modernise its football structure.
‘You can’t go into a country, rape the country and then run away,’ said Hack, speaking from a Cairo conference looking at ways of tackling the problem of European clubs poaching young African talent.
‘You are not even putting anything back into that country. ‘I have never heard of this academy and they have certainly not been endorsed by SAFA. They can’t come in without having the sanction or an endorsement from the national association and the sports department or the education department. It’s against new regulations which were introduced last year.’
The new regulations came last year after a string of soccer schools were suddenly opened across South Africa by individuals apparently looking to cash in on the country hosting the 2010 World Cup.
Hack continued: ‘We will take steps to investigate very, very strongly. You cannot have people coming into your country, investing in your talent, even if the intentions are 100 per cent good. There is a procedure and a protocol which needs to be followed. ‘Because you’ve got money does not mean that you can come in and invest in the country and decide what you’re going to take and what you’re not going to take.’
Much of this is being refuted by Steptoe and his business partners, who along with the academy formed Cape United FC, to which all the players are registered.
Shaun Ascough, the academy’s commercial manager, said that the school had already recruited 20 boys and that four more were joining next week from Cameroon after being recruited by Song. In the next few weeks, Steptoe said there would be a trial for another 1,000 boys.
The academy was opened in April by Wright and George Eastham OBE, a non-playing member of England’s 1966 World Cup-winning squad. Eastham will operate as the academy’s chief scout.
Ascough, a wealthy estate agent who emigrated to Cape Town from the UK five years ago, said: ‘There is obviously a business angle to this, but that is not the number one reason why I’m involved and it’s not the number one reason why Ian Wright is involved, either.’
Steptoe, a director with the Leicester Riders basketball team, owns a 50 per cent shareholding in the Jersey-registered company. He also insists the academy was set up for ‘altruistic reasons’. ‘This is not about making money,’ he said. ‘This is about giving something back and what Mr Hack is saying is so unfair.’
On Monday, Sportsmail spoke to one organisation that was approached by Steptoe two years ago. He wanted them to invest and presented the academy purely as a commercial venture.
In an email to Sportsmail, Steptoe did explain how it all works for the likes of Wright and Warnock. ‘Each client chooses the boys that they wish to mentor and they have a 40 per cent interest in the first transfer,’ he said. ‘Some clients have an interest in one student per year and others have an interest in three students per year over the next four years. The minimum interest is four students over a four-year period.’
Despite all the talk of ‘giving something back’, a website set up to attract further funding for the academy leaves little doubt as to the commercial nature of the enterprise. Not least in a special section entitled ‘The Transfer Market’. It writes of ‘an excellent package of services to capitalise on this opportunity’.
Next to a photograph of club ambassador Wright, it further states: ‘Clients can engage our services to source, develop and place the next generation of professional footballers. Alternatively, we can develop talent identified and introduced by you.’
On Monday, Anderson denied any knowledge of the fact that his players would receive 40 per cent of a transfer fee, insisting there was ‘no money-making involved’. He also said the project had received the blessing of SAFA’ s Phil Masinga, but Hack countered that Masinga is an ambassador for the 2010 World Cup but not a SAFA representative.
‘I invested some money,’ said Anderson. ‘I believe in the project and at some stage in the future, when the lad is 18, maybe we’ll be allowed to sell that player on for the club.’
Steptoe made the same point about former Leeds striker Masinga, although he did then also reveal that SAFA executive committee member Vernon Seymour attended the opening on April 3.
On Monday Colin Gie, the academy’s CEO and Quinton Fortune’s former agent, contacted Hack for the first time. ‘I’ve just had a call from him,’ Hack told Sportsmail. ‘He tried to tell me it’s not an academy but a football school. That still sounds like an academy to me and they have not made an application to SAFA.’
None of the Premier League players involved were available for comment last night. Despite speaking extensively with his agent, Sportsmail was unable to contact Wright.