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African footballers as young as 14 are being trafficked to Asia and forced to sign contracts, the BBC has learnt.

Six minors are still with top Laos side Champasak United, after it imported 23 under-age players from West Africa to an unregistered football academy in February, a BBC investigation found.

Fifa regulations prohibit the movement of players to a foreign club or academy until they are 18.

The club, based in the southern city Pakse, denies any wrongdoing.

"Fifa is in contact with several member associations in order to gather all information to assess the matter and safeguard the interests of the minors," a Fifa spokesperson told the BBC.

It has been claimed that Champasak United, a newly-formed club which plays in Laos's top league, intends to profit by selling the players in future.

In a clear breach of the world football governing body's rules, the club has fielded overseas players as young as 14 and 15 in league games this season.

One 14-year-old player, Liberia's Kesselly Kamara, who scored in a full league game, says he was forced into signing a six-year deal before playing for the senior team.

His contract promised him a salary and accommodation, but Kamara says he was never paid and had to sleep on the floor of the club's stadium - as did the rest of the travelling party.

"It was very bad because you can't have 30 people sleeping in one room," Kamara, who is now playing for a club back home in Liberia's top league, told the BBC.

All those who travelled to join the "IDSEA Champasak Asia African Football Academy" did so after being invited by former Liberia international Alex Karmo, who captained the club at the time.

Young players gratefully accepted the invitation, since Liberia lacks a football academy of its own, despite being the only African country to have produced a Fifa World Footballer of the Year - George Weah in 1995.

"It's a fictitious academy, which was never legally established," said Liberian journalist and sports promoter Wleh Bedell, who led the group to Laos in February but who has since returned.

"It's an 'academy' that has no coach nor doctor. Karmo was the coach, the business manager, everything. It was completely absurd."

Following initial pressure from both Fifa and global players' body FIFPro, Champasak released 17 teenagers from the original party, with Kamara among them, three months ago.

But six minors chose to remain.