Hopeful young players scammed

Give us a summary dude.

 

I'll give you the freisland version: (though, at the risk of being snarky, they don't sound like the most, uh, resourceful young men ever sent abroad)

Two American players, Alberto Rodriguez (21) and Vilson Maldonado (20) are heading home to LA after 3 weeks at Groesbeek, NL club Achilles '29. They feel cheated by the Mexican agent Victor Morales, who brought them there.

They went to Achilles '29 at the end of Jan. A friend's dad had put them in touch with Morales. They paid 2k (in cash - to Morales) 1500 for "league registration," (League Registration is free) and were told they were going to sign a pro contract. They were on a 3 month tourist visa. They didn't make the 1st team and feel like they were ripped off. Achilles was a storied club but is in financial trouble and dropped another division this season. Seems this was a kind of "pay to try out" situation with young players coming from all over the world, (Argentina, Bermuda, Canada, US etc.) paying these "agents" and hoping to make the first team. These two did not (seems like most didn't) and are mad and want their money back. The Agent claims they knew the money was for the agents to set up the trial/training.

Also Achilles '29 technical manager Frans Dersk (not head coach) was implicated and has been suspended by Achilles. Club press release said "Frans is the original Achilles heel..." He apparently also owns the crash pads that the players stayed in and was probably making some dough that way. There are also accusations that the foreign players played for "Jong Achilles" illegally (not registered in the "Jong" league) - and that Frans even told them they were to use different names when playing.

I have no idea how much of the above is true, but that's the gist of the article - and is likely not all that unusual in many places, though it seems a bit OTT for dutch footie. Achilles was a big-ish club not that long ago.

 

Short version: there's a sucker born every minute.

 

Yeah, though I think a mitigating factor is that an "official" (basically an assistant coach) at Achilles seems complicit - and there's a bit of subtext to the article that perhaps the club itself might have been aware or tolerating this. In which case it's a bit more on the agent and club - although anyone asked to pay 1500 bucks cash for Dutch fees should be really wary - the Dutch are all about paperwork when things are on the up and up. But this would not be unlike say, if the Quebec Nordiques were now playing in the QHL and working with agents to entice Ukrainian, Czech and Baltic States pro-wannabes to pay 1500 Euros to get a shot of playing with them. It's the fact the club worked with these cons that make it a bit more of an overt scam and not just overly hopeful young men willing to take a risk.