"All that I know most surely about morality and
obligations, I owe to football" - Albert Camus
Pierre Bodenghien immediately knew he'd spotted
a gem.
"He had everything - size, technique and physicality,"
remembers the 58-year-old scout. "He was equally
good with his left and right foot and very versatile."
Bodenghien was watching Ilombe Mboyo play in an
unusual setting - the Ittre jail in Brussels - and the
training session was being held as part of the pioneering
'Football in Prison' scheme he was running, which had
been started in 1995 by Princess Paola [now Queen
Paola] of Belgium.
At the time, Mboyo's emergence seemed to be the
crowning glory of the scheme.
The teenager was born in Congo and raised in Brussels,
where he played football in the city's parks. One of the
youths he played alongside in the parks was Vincent
Kompany, now the captain of Manchester City and
Belgium, who described Mboyo as a "rare pearl".
Having been a scout for more than 20 years,
Bodenghien immediately recognised Mboyo's talent
when he saw him playing at Ittre jail and alerted his
employers at Charleroi. Taking into account Mboyo's
good behaviour in prison, an arrangement was then
made with the judicial authorities for him to start
training with the club.
Charleroi were managed by former Scotland midfielder
John Collins at the time and he remembers: "[Mboyo]
joined in with a couple of training sessions, with lots of
passing and possession drills, and we then invited him
to some trial games.
"At the time he still had to go back to prison once or
twice a week. We talked about discipline and respect
and working in a group.
"He was very quiet, as you'd expect from someone
coming from prison and joining a professional group.
He had the technical ability and was a strong boy - you
could see he'd obviously been working out a lot in
prison.
"But his behaviour was excellent. He just got on with
his work and it was nice to see him adapt and integrate
with the others. Everyone deserves a second chance."
After impressing in these trial games and again when he
came off the bench for the reserves, Mboyo was signed
by Charleroi in 2009 in a deal sanctioned by the Belgian
courts.
His football career maintained a steep upward
trajectory after that. He signed for Belgian Pro League
side Kortrijk on a permanent deal in September
2010 and the following January joined Gent, where
he really made a name for himself, scoring 37 goals in
80 appearances and gained the nickname "Le Petit
Pele". He was even given the captain's armband.
Mboyo won two caps for Belgium during their 2014
World Cup qualifying campaign and could join the likes
of Christian Benteke, Marouane Fellaini, Dries Mertens,
Eden Hazard and Vincent Kompany on the plane to
Brazil next year.
But this is where Mboyo's fairytale story suddenly takes
on a darker hue. People began to look into the
background of the star striker and it did not take long
to find out he had been in prison after taking part in
the gang rape of a 14-year-old girl in 2004, when he
was 17 and a member of one of the most notorious
street gangs in the Matonge district of Brussels.
The crime led to a seven-year prison sentence.
Unsurprisingly, there was an outcry that someone who
had committed such a serious crime should now be
gaining fame and fortune as a professional footballer.
Mboyo insisted prison had changed him. "It was there,
for the first time, that I realised the seriousness of what
I had done," he said. "I decided to take responsibility."
The Belgian FA publicly supported the player when he
was called up to the national team last year. Its
president, Francois De Keersmaeker, declared: "Once
someone's time in the cells ends, they don't necessarily
have to be lost to society.
"It's too easy to stigmatise. Mboyo could be an example
for young people who go down the wrong path."
Yet the view was not shared by everyone. Mboyo was
on the brink of a move to West Ham this summer,
before Hammers fans found out about his past and
launched a Twitter campaign opposing the signing.
West Ham owner David Sullivan pulled out of the deal,
explaining: "I couldn't go against the supporters. We
wanted their opinions and they seem to have said no."
The player ended up joining Genk, one of the biggest
clubs in Belgian football, for £3.5m instead.
While Mboyo has continued to progress in his career -
he has three goals in seven domestic and European
games for Genk this season - the controversy appeared
to trigger the demise of Bodenghien's 'Football in
Prisons' project, to which he had dedicated two
decades of his life.
"Twice a week, 30 prisoners would come in for a
training session, and far more wanted to participate,"
says Bodenghien. "It was very structured, with proper
equipment and coaches.
"Prisoners learnt values such as self-discipline and how
to be part of a team. If they misbehaved in jail, as a
punishment they were not allowed to come to the
sessions."
Enzo Scifo, perhaps the greatest Belgian footballer of
all time, was even involved.
"Enzo would speak to the prisoners, which was a huge
event for them as he was their idol," says Bodenghien.
"The first time he came he was a little bit afraid
because of the atmosphere - all the shouting and the
noise of the keys and the doors slamming - but he was
great with the prisoners."
The safety of Bodenghien and his coaches had been
guaranteed by the powerful gang bosses inside the jails
who would watch from the sidelines "managing" their
teams.
"In 18 years I witnessed just one fight, even though the
five-a-side matches were fiercely competitive - the
team that scored first stayed on until they were
beaten," the 58-year-old adds.
In fact, such was the scheme's success at Ittre, that it
had been expanded to 12 other prisons across the
country. And in a unique experiment, Bodenghien even
brought a football team of prosecution and defence
lawyers into the prisons, some of whom would have
actively contributed to the incarceration of those they
were playing against.
But in the wake of the Mboyo controversy the plug was
pulled on the scheme's annual funding. Financial cuts
were cited as the reason, although the scheme cost a
relatively modest 15,000 euros a year to run.
Bodenghien attempted to carry on his work
independently but found the Mboyo revelations had
undone goodwill in the prisons.
"A lot of the guards were jealous [of Mboyo's success]
because they didn't think an ex-prisoner has the right
to earn a lot of money and popularity," he claims.
Disillusioned, he stopped bringing football to the
prisons.
While Mboyo's case opens a wider - and highly emotive
- debate about the social reintegration of those who
have committed very serious crimes, Bodenghien can
think only about the opportunities he feels have been
lost with the closure of 'Football in Prison'.
"When inmates play football, they don't fight, they
don't use drugs and a sense of teamwork based on
respect for others can be built," he argues.
"It was something that I was involved in from the start
and that was in accordance with my own personal
values. It was a formidable human project."
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