Last week, I was having a chat with a young player, and he was expressing some confusion and disappointment at a trial he attended.
▶️ Player’s version
He travelled to the club on the instructions of a random agent who contacted him. He received an invitation letter from the club on letterhead paper, so he paid for his flight and departed.
On arriving at the club, the coach turned him away and he was not allowed to train. He was asked to speak to the agent that sent him, which he attempted to do. In the meantime, he was having to accommodate himself. Eventually, he left and returned home.
I was puzzled as to exactly what went down because it seemed odd that a player would receive an invitation letter from a club, show up at the club and then be told that they would not be training… and asked to leave 😵💫.
Coincidentally, I knew the club and have a good relationship with the coach so I decided to make my own enquiries 📞.
▶️ Club’s version
The coach informed me that an agent presented a player to them. They were happy with the player and asked the agent to send the player on a trial. They drafted an invitation letter, but it was only after the letter had been sent that they realised it wasn’t the same player that had been presented to them 👀🤦🏽♀️. They promptly contacted the agent and asked him not to send the player as it was not the player they were interested in. The club sent three messages to notify the agent, but he still went ahead and sent the player 😥.
This gave me “Promisor” vibes 😖😂! (Football Agents – Know their markets) 👇🏽
▶️ Agent’s version:
Unfortunately, I don’t have that 🤷🏽♀️.
This debacle reminded me of when I first started out as a football agent. A club in Ghana was looking for a striker. An “agent” in Nigeria presented three strikers to me which I presented to the club in Ghana. The players were invited to trial.
The “agent” and the players travelled by road to Ghana. They had barely trained for one full day, when someone from the technical team called and asked me where I had found “these players”. I thought he meant that they were really good 🙌🏽🤪, but oh no, quite the opposite. He said they were diabolical 🙆🏽♀️. I remember him describing them as “playing like they had two left legs” 😂😂😂.
At first, I was confused because the profiles and the videos that I received from the “agent” were very good so I contacted the “agent”……..
🥁🥁🥁
To cut a really long story short, he told me that the initial three players had found opportunities in Europe, but as he didn’t want to “miss out on the opportunity”, he decided to send three other players….. without informing me!!! 😤😡
hashtag#Blocked 🛑
Lots of lessons to be learnt from the above.
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