Are you hoping for your child to become a professional footballer, believing they have the talent but just haven’t been discovered yet? If so, this might be the opportunity you’ve been waiting for.

This enticing proposition is aimed at parents of football-enthusiast children, offered by numerous companies that promise young players a chance to showcase their skills in front of Premier League scouts—for a fee.

Across the country, these businesses organize trials for aspiring football stars, charging up to £150 per day or £1,500 for a week, with the allure of being observed by scouts from top-tier clubs.

However, none of these companies are officially licensed by the FA. Sources have informed Daily Mail Sport that the governing body does not recognize these ventures as affiliated activities.

“If you’re a talented footballer yet to be noticed by scouts, we can assist,” boasts one website. Another asks, “Do you dream of capturing the attention of elite scouts and earning your place in the professional football arena?”

None of the companies offering young footballers the chance to pay a fee to be scouted by a Premier League club are licenced through the FA, with sources telling Daily Mail Sport the governing body does not recognise them as affiliated activities

None of the ‘Premier League scouts’ at these trial events exactly have a hotline to Mikel Arteta

It’s a straightforward path to potential stardom: pay the fee, participate in training drills and a match, and see if you catch the eye of one of the 10-15 scouts clad in their club attire. After that, as the saying goes, don’t call us, we’ll call you.

That’s how it played out for Sharelle Mullen’s nephew Rasham, who after paying to attend a trial day aged 16 was told he had interest from AFC Wimbledon. Mullen says they never heard anything back and it left her nephew ‘heartbroken’.

‘It really knocked his confidence,’ Mullen tells Daily Mail Sport. ‘It affected his studies at school. Now, two years on, he only plays for his local pub team at weekends.’

It’s clear he’s not alone. Another parent recently complained that their child, a goalkeeper, only played 15 minutes of a trial match they paid to play in and were made to do rock, paper, scissors to decide who played twice.

Daily Mail Sport spoke to numerous sources from inside the game, including scouts, coaches, agents, directors and heads of talent identification from clubs in the Premier League, Championship and League One down to non-League to investigate what one chief executive described as a ‘huge issue for football’.

Daily Mail Sport can now reveal:

• Premier League clubs demanded their badges be removed from a trial company website after being told they were there by Daily Mail Sport.

• Companies were charging players up to £3,000 for trials at non-League clubs who deny any formal links to the organisation. 

• A scout ‘representing’ a Premier League club at a major open trial was a volunteer who bought his own tracksuit.

• A leading firm were using near decade-old footage featuring clubs that told Daily Mail Sport they no longer scout there.

• A top-flight club were asked if their attendance at a trial could be advertised by a company even after the club confirmed they would not attend.

‘It feels to me like some are preying on those with too much money or those too desperate, who will put their hopes into something where there is not much chance of making it at the end,’ one head of talent identification at a Premier League club tells Daily Mail Sport.

Multiple sources have described this as a ‘murky’ industry. Murky because, on the one hand, these trial companies can do what they say on the tin. Scouts representing clubs attend events and, if they like what they see, will take a player’s details. Some clubs contacted by Daily Mail Sport confirmed that they have sent scouts to such events. And yet, on the other, all these promises are not quite as glamourous as they appear, leaving parents and children disenchanted by the whole process.

Daily Mail Sport looked at several scouting companies including UK Football Trials, Pitch your Skill, Elite Football Trials and Noble Scouting. It is not suggested that any of these companies have acted illegally but there are grave concerns about the level of expectation and hope they are selling to parents and children.

‘We all hear the stories of Ian Wright and Jamie Vardy but in this era, the chances of them being missed is way, way smaller than back in those days,’ says one League One chief executive

One scout attending an event for UK Football Trials was later revealed to Daily Mail Sport to be a volunteer friend of a club employee who had bought his own club top

Even clubs who admitted to sending scouts were keen to insist they had no official partnership with these trial companies. FIFA ban clubs from charging for trials themselves. Others made it clear that those who claim to represent them are often someone who knows someone who knows someone at their club. They are many rungs down the talent identification ladder.

‘We have people who work with our scouts, recommend names of young talents, but then they portray themselves as working for the club,’ a chief executive at a League One club tells Daily Mail Sport. ‘It is a huge issue for the game.

‘We must get 20 requests a week from people saying they want to scout for free. I have no doubt that clubs use volunteers, people that aren’t in their ecosystem, and that gives them legitimacy.’

One scout attending an event for UK Football Trials, the largest and most prominent trials company, and who appeared in a video on the company’s social media channels, was later revealed to Daily Mail Sport to be a volunteer friend of a club employee who had bought his own club top.

UK Football Trials told Daily Mail Sport that they take many measures to ensure all scouts are officially connected to their clubs. Scouts at their events are paid £100 to attend, to cover expenses, but they insisted they receive no further payment for selecting players and are not pressurised to do so.

‘We’re acutely aware we’re dealing with young people’s dreams,’ James Price, CEO of UK Football Group, tells Daily Mail Sport.

But badges of multiple clubs from the Premier League to League One, including Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham, Brentford, Fulham and West Ham, sit prominently on the homepage of Pitch Your Skills, another company that proclaims that ‘this will be your chance to play in front of professional football club scouts from the premier [sic] to the non-league’.

To any hopeful parent, it suggests a clear relationship between the two.

Ian Wright played non-league football before being spotted by Crystal Palace – but those days are long gone

When Daily Mail Sport made Fulham Football Club aware that a trials company was using their badge on their homepage, they asked them to remove it via a legal letter

When Daily Mail Sport made the clubs aware, Fulham and Brentford asked the company to remove their badges, the former via a legal letter.

A promotional video on the homepage of UK Football Trials shows scouts of various clubs discussing why they attend their events. Analysis of the kits show they are nearly 10 years old. Hardly scouts fresh from the club training ground.

It also includes talking heads from Liverpool and Wolves yet sources at both clubs tell Daily Mail Sport they do not currently attend their events to scout for new talent.

One unnamed company messaged the head of talent ID at a Premier League club three times to ask if his scouts would attend their event and, when told they wouldn’t be doing so, asked if they could advertise one was coming anyway.

That same Premier League club recently cancelled an invitational match with a trial side against their youngsters when they found out parents were being charged £35 a head for a place on the team.

Another club, however, tells Daily Mail Sport that while the prominence of their badge on Pitch Your Skills was a clear breach of their intellectual property, they prefer to turn a blind eye in case one day the next Lionel Messi turns up.

UK Football Trials will point to Bournemouth and Canada forward Daniel Jebbison, who attended a trial day in Birmingham in 2018, was spotted by Sheffield United, and recently namedropped the company in an interview.

‘My family really supported me, they believed in me,’ said Jebbison. ‘My parents actually set me up to go to UK Football Trials, and that’s where it all started.’

Sharelle Mullen’s nephew Rasham, who paid to attend a trial day aged 16, was told he had interest from AFC Wimbledon. Mullen says they never heard anything back and it left her nephew ‘heartbroken’

Teams made it clear that those who claim to represent them are often someone who knows someone who knows someone at their club. They are many rungs down the talent identification ladder

The ‘success stories’ sections of these websites are littered with kids who have secured trials or contracts following their attendance. It is clear some make it. UK Football Trials claim that one in seven of their attendees last year were ‘scouted’, which they define as having their details requested by those in attendance. Even then, though, there is no guarantee it will lead to anything more than having your name added to a database.

And yet the chances of making it are still infinitesimal and, if Messi does turn up, clubs tend to see him coming. Multiple clubs tell Daily Mail Sport that if they do attend such events, it will be after being tipped off that a promising youngster is playing.

When Daily Mail Sport sent a screenshot of a young player featured on UK Football Trials to the chief executive of the League One club he’d signed for, they confirmed he had, in fact, been recommended by a former member of staff who had since begun working for the company.

It was a UK Football Trials event that Mullen’s nephew attended and the company insist the scout expressed interest in watching the player at a future fixture and deny her claim that the family never heard back.

The main message that comes back from Premier League clubs to young hopefuls is simple: if you are good enough, you will be found. You do not need to pay for your one shot.

Clubs, more than ever before, know where to look. They have partnerships with teams in their local area, like West Ham with Hutton in Essex or Chelsea with Lambeth Tigers.

‘We all hear the stories of Ian Wright and Jamie Vardy but in this era and with the levels of infrastructure and investment (from big clubs), the chances of them being missed is way, way smaller than back in those days,’ says the League One chief executive.

‘Scouts have networks of people watching games who give them tip-offs. In metropolitan areas, there’s not a chance a player will be missed.’

There have been success stories like Bournemouth and Canada forward Daniel Jebbison, who attended a trial day in Birmingham in 2018 and was spotted by Sheffield United 

Jebbison is now on loan at Preston from Bournemouth and says: ‘My family really supported me. My parents actually set me up to go to UK Football Trials, and that’s where it all started’

And yet open trials are still booming business. ‘For me, it’s a money-spinner,’ one high-profile scout who works with clubs in the Premier League and Europe to identify young talent tells Daily Mail Sport.

‘Maybe they will find a player once in a blue moon but, for most parents, I feel for them, because some think it’s a real opportunity. I used to scout for academies, I’ve been in the youth sector for 15 years, and this stuff has been going on for years.

‘Clubs now have a ridiculous number of scouts. They work with grassroots scouts. They recruit people who run grassroots clubs. They know where to look.

‘Parents will shell out money because they think it gives their child the best chance of being spotted. Unfortunately, that is very unlikely.’

It’s not just at the top of the pyramid where there’s money to be made. One company called Elite Football Trials, who describe themselves as ‘the world’s leading football consultancy’, offer to secure trials with professional or semi-professional clubs for a fee of between £1,500 and £3,000.

Each package, they say, guarantees three club trials. They ask you to first fill in your ‘football CV’, a potted history of your amateur achievements, but there is nothing to stop you adding packages to your online basket and purchasing them with a few clicks of the mouse. Their website and social media is littered with good luck posts for players on trial or ones of congratulations for those signed for clubs such as Weston Super Mare, Bromsgrove Sporting, Oadby Town and Wealdstone.

When Daily Mail Sport contacted Bromsgrove and Wealdstone, the former under the guise of a parent looking to find a club for their promising child, they both denied any official connection with the company.    

‘There is absolutely no need to use the company you state,’ said a Bromsgrove Sporting official in response to our email. Wealdstone also confirmed they hold open trials for academy prospects up to four times a year, all of which are free to attend.

A company founded alongside Joe Cole charges £300 for a scout to attend a child’s game and provide a report with no guarantees of the child being recommended to a professional club

‘Maybe they will find a player once in a blue moon but, for most parents, I feel for them, because some think it’s a real opportunity,’ says one high-profile scout

When Daily Mail Sport made Wealdstone aware of a recent post by Elite Football Trials wishing a young player good luck on his trial at the club, the academy director responded to say the player’s name did not show up on their system. He admitted there was a chance he had turned up for the free open trial. He also did not recognise a further name of a player Elite Football Trials congratulated on signing for the club this season.

Elite Football Trials did not respond to our requests for comment.

But when it comes to football, the money wheel never stops turning. Noble Scouting, a company founded alongside Joe Cole, charges £300 for a scout to attend a child’s game and provide a report with no guarantees of the child being recommended to a professional club. ‘Mind-blowing,’ said the Premier League club head of talent ID.

So, as long as children – and their parents – continue to dream, there’s a profit to be made. As the high-profile scout puts it about the open trials: ‘They dangle that carrot to the parents. It gives them hope. And when there’s hope, people will pay.’