UEFA to limit ‘youth trafficking’

PREMIER LEAGUE clubs’ growing practice of sweeping the globe for promising teenagers is under threat from UEFA, who are targeting new rules aimed at limiting the transfer of players under 18.

There has been increasing concern that the top clubs in England, Italy, Spain, Portugal and France are creaming off the best young players from other countries, following the success of Spanish midfielder Cesc Fabregas at Arsenal, while in other leagues players are being brought in from Africa, South America and eastern Europe.

UEFA president Michel Platini is now considering making a proposal to compel young players to sign their first professional contract at the club where they have trained.

The Premier League believe any restrictions would fall foul of European labour laws but UEFA say they have been encouraged by the European White Paper on sport published last week calling for stricter rules and “the principle that players should sign their first professional contract with the club which has trained them”.

UEFA communications director William Gaillard, said on behalf of Platini: “the biggest clubs have the best players and the best coaches — that has always been the case – but if they also have the best youth it’s the end of football as we know it.

“So let’s leave at least the young players for a couple of years with their original clubs so they can complete their education because there are a lot of cases all over Europe of terrible failures of very promising players that have been transferred very early, when still children, and haven’t developed well and their career has been ended.”

Gaillard said the practice was basically “youth trafficking” and was not ethical. “They are being brought over at a very young age and basically dumped in the streets if they don’t make it.”