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​Former Premier League Footballer 'Was Trafficked for Sex'

Former Watford midfielder Al​ Bangura has told the BBC that he was brought to the UK to work in the sex trade.
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This story originally appeared on VICE Sports UK.

Former Watford midfielder Al Bangura has told the BBC that he was brought to the UK to work in the sex trade.

The 27-year-old played Premier League football for the Hornets during the 2006–07 season, and also turned out for the club in the Championship. He later spent three and a half years at Forest Green Rovers, and last year was on the books at Coventry City.

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But the Sierra Leonean says that when he was originally brought to Britain as a teenager, it was – unbeknownst to him – to work as a prostitute. After his parents instructed him to succeed his father as the leader of 'a voodoo cult', he moved to Guinea. Bangura then travelled to Britain with a French national, who claimed he would help him break into football.

Instead, he attempted to force the teenager into sex work.

"We went to a building. I was there for an hour, an hour and a half. And the [French] guy left me. All of a sudden I saw two or three guys come around me, trying to rape me and make me do stuff," Bangura told the BBC's Sima Kotecha.

"Because I was young and I was small, I just started screaming. They probably thought I knew what I was there for – obviously I know what I came over here for, I was here to play football.

"I said I didn't think this was something I wanted to get involved with. I want to play football and I'm going to school so I don't want to do that," he continued.

"I was just crying and proper screaming and I tried to make my way out – I was cold, I was crying, I was shaking, I didn't know what to do, I was all over the place.

"I made my way outside. I didn't know where to start, I thought it was the end of my life."

After seeking help, Bangura was eventually able to claim asylum for two years, then fulfilled his dream by forging a career in professional football.

"I started meeting people, started playing football and I got the opportunity to join Watford when I was 16 and things just started building up for me," he explains.

He was threatened with deportation in 2007, but was allowed to remain in the country and apply for a work permit following significant protests from Watford and other football bodies.

Bangura is now working with the Premier League to raise awareness about young players brought to Europe from Africa under false pretenses. While his story is one of an against-all-odds success, many of the boys who leave home to play football do not reach the professional ranks.