The name Azeem Abdulai will not be known to every Swansea City follower, in fact it was met with surprise when he was linked to numerous Premier League clubs in the week. It would have been easy to replicate a link to Daily Mail sports journalist Adam Shergold’s story on the player, not least the odd - but not that surprising comparison to one Jude Bellingham at Borussia Dortmund.
Of course we dug a bit deeper. Welcome to a series of reports we will call ‘uncovered’
Abdulai, is a success story in his own right. Having been released by Glasgow Celtic he took himself to London aged just sixteen and trained at the AG Academy run by Ex Chelsea youth player and football agent, Godfrey K Torto. Godfrey is a maverick to say the least, and most certainly a man who does not rest on his laurels. When his football career was ended at Chelsea he turned to other football and public relations matters. The upshot was his London based football academy AG ( Ask Godders )
Torto works out of Isleworth in Middlesex in the main but boasts a lot of strings to his PR bow. He represents Abdulai, and has done since their first meeting some four years ago. When Torto is keen on getting his roster of players noticed, like many agents, he turns to what he knows, enter the above Adam Shergold. However, before we examine that link we must have a look at Torto’s history. He is described as the innovator behind AG right back to its inception in 2008; AG has gone from strength to strength offering clients brokerage, PR and management services.‘ That’s their strap line. Torto is everywhere and all at once, he has a thirst for charitable concerns from the Bobby Moore fund to numerous children’s charities. He also has links to high profile PR company SEG International.
With that all explained, when a player like Azeem Abdulai is on your roster, and you reach an age (21) where your career should be at a higher level you expect your agent to do some business. And that is what Torto does. As we mentioned previously Adam Shergold is a journalist who has featured Torto in the Daily Mail newspaper before, not least when his football interests began to get some well earned praise. Shergold has featured Torto several times in the Mail, and as he did last week has promoted and written about his player roster. It has to be said if you have access to a national concern like the Daily Mail, then why not utilise that relationship to your own good ?
Abdulai is one of many players Torto has ‘unearthed’ as such. When Leicester City released Azeem in 2021 he found a home at the Swans. Another AG product, Yasin Ben El-Mhanni, found himself with a Newcastle United contract in 2016, sadly that didn’t work out and he is now at Arbroath. However, it was Torto that gave him that break. The same can be said for Ibrahim Meite who Torto moved to Cardiff City. Sadly, in a matter of no time at all he fell foul of the law and ended up in prison for stabbing a man in a fight in Putney, London. Meite’s career took a downward spiral after he left Cardiff despite playing first team football. Again Meite, the same as El-Mhanni was plucked from the obscurity of London park football by Torto - and given the opportunity many would love to have. The fact they failed to an extent says more about the player than the agent.
Another success was Frank Vincent who signed for premier league AFC Bournemouth in 2016, he was at Notts County last season and is currently a free agent. Again, the agent afforded him the chance, the player in this case took it, but for a variety of reasons didn’t make the grade. Then we have Abdulai who is contracted to Swansea for another two years. This week his agent has acted fast in the midst of some upheaval at the Swans. Whether or not Newcastle and Villa are genuinely interested enough to pursue the player, or indeed Borussia Dortmund is by the by. We have featured agents many times before on this website, we have dug deep to explain the mindset and guile of this much maligned and misunderstood industry, but there is one thing to take from this. Without them Abdulai wouldn’t be in the national press. Without his commitment to being who he is Abdulai also wouldn’t be a current U21 Scottish International along with another Swans prospect Liam Smith.
You can tout players as much as you like, and of course they will get column inches if you know the right number to call, especially if Godfrey K Torto is your agent. However, at the end of it all your personal skills must come to the fore. At Swansea, Abdulai has had an incredible second chance to be the player he wants to be. He is now though at an age where he must find professional league football regularly. Whether that’s on loan or in the Swans first team squad, this is his most important summer, and possibly why his agent is more than aware it’s make or break time.
Even if you are still only twenty.
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