A former employee of the BSports Academy, whose premises were raided on suspicion of human trafficking, confirms to TSF that the documentation of the young people was withheld by the organization and that the minors were prevented from leaving the facilities, but he denies having acted illegally.
As the project, spearheaded by the president of the Liga Portugal General Assembly, Mário Costa, progressed, the academy president created a set of rules to protect the image of the young athletes’ training program.
The source that collaborated with the project explains that, in the case of the documents of the young foreigners, these began to be retained by the academy after problems between the young athletes. From then on, Mário Costa decided that the project organization should keep documentation such as passports, returning them only at the request of the young people themselves.
The minors, however, were prevented from leaving the facilities after an episode in a park in the area, when several young people who did not speak Portuguese and did not have Portuguese identification were detained by the police in a space marked by the authorities for being used for drug trafficking. traffic
Also there, the decision was to limit the freedom of the young graduates, preventing them from leaving the academy facilities.
The testimony transmitted to TSF ensures that the objective of each of these measures was never to limit, beyond the law, the lives of these children and young people, among other things because many ended up completing more than a year of training, even returning to the project for more seasons and college years.
The same source explains TSF He doubts that the amounts collected from the families allow the Riba de Ave project, in the municipality of Famalicão, to be fed as a lucrative business.
The Bsports Academy, chaired by Mário Costa, was one of the places indicated by the Foreign and Border Service (SEF) as part of an investigation in which the leader of the AG of the League is suspected of the crime of human trafficking . . The other target location was his own house.
Source: TSF
