Every child has the right to be free from abuse, violence and exploitation, as well as having the right to healthy development and survival, as enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
However, we have seen that young people pursuing a career in the professional sport are often expected to sacrifice these rights in the pursuit of their dream.
Dr Serhat Yilmaz is calling on the football community to do more to respect these rights, giving young people a voice to ensure that their rights, needs and concerns are met.
We are calling for the football community to work together to ensure children’s rights are respected for every child within the game. We must not forget that they are children before players.
Dr Serhat Yilmaz
Dr Yilmaz's research is inspired by his own background in playing football, my aspiration as a father to create a better world for children, and my legal expertise which enables me to apply international children’s rights to sporting contexts.
His work has already led to the establishment of a compulsory CPD training for licensed football agents globally, to support their understanding and knowledge about working with young talent and children’s rights.
Ultimately, Dr Yilmaz's hopes his research leads to a rights-based and child-centred sport ecosystem in which the rights of every child are respected and realised so that children can develop holistically while pursuing their sporting ambitions.
Our impact
UNICEF Club Guide
We have worked with professional football teams to identify and embed good recruitment practices that conform with children’s rights and standards
SINAFE Project
We have explored migration of young talented African footballers to understand the challenges they face when moving to Europe for football purposes, resulting in a SINAFE Toolkit and Training Course for migrant athletes.
FIFA Minors Course for Agents
We have developed a global CPD programme for licensed football agents to advance their understanding of working with young talent in football and developing children’s rights-based agent practice.
Sport Trafficking Project
We are supporting legislative and policy developments by developing a definition of sport trafficking aligned to the international definition of human trafficking, under the UN’s Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Protocol.
The work supports the legislative and policy developments on sport trafficking to tackle it as a human rights violation and a crime.
Research in numbers
Loughborough University’s research has helped to develop The International Safeguards for Children in Sport, used by a range of organisations globally to keep more than 50 million young people safe when playing sport.
Loughborough University in collaboration with Mission 89 has led to the incorporation of trafficking into the UN Resolution ‘Improving the coordination of efforts against trafficking in persons’ (A/RES/78/228) adopted by the General Assembly on 19 December 2023.
1.5 million boys play organised youth football at any given time in England, while only around 180 will be signed professionally by a Premier League club.
Over 3000 licensed football agents have studied the FIFA Minors course, designed and developed by Loughborough University.
Funders and Partnerships
FIFA
The organisation has worked with us to develop the ‘FIFA Minors Course’ - a compulsory global CPD programme for licensed football agents who work with young footballers.
UNICEF UK
We are working on a number of projects focusing on children’s rights and football to embed rights into the industry.
CPA UK
We are working with Loughborough University to support legislative and policy developments on human trafficking in sport as part of their Sport Trafficking Project.
Mission 89 (NGO)
We are a non-academic collaborator for our sports agent's education provision and a knowledge exchange partner on human trafficking in sport.
