In 2017, Italy’s undercover agents arrested a couple from Ivory Coast in Parma. They were allegedly part of a human trafficking ring that sold the European football dream and smuggled children to Italy from West Africa. The couple had two boys in their mid-teens staying with them, Amad and Hamed, both bearing the surname Traore. The couple claimed they were their children, though DNA tests turned up negative. Subsequently, they said they had adopted the children from their close cousins, “to save them from poverty.” Hamed and Amad—it was proved that they were not blood relatives, forget brothers, either—were from Adjame, a densely-populated suburb of Abidjan with the highest crime rate in the country. The Italian authorities did not deport the teenagers home because the investigators contended that the “children were aware of it and had a reasonable life with their fake parents.” They were playing in a local club—Boca Barco—affiliated with Boca Juniors of Argentina. The court, though, slapped a fine of €48,000 on them in 2021. Soon after Amad dropped “Traore” from his …