Age-related Cheating Scandal Rocks Africa U-17 Qualifiers, 20 Players Disqualified

Confederation of African Football (CAF) West Africa zone U-17 qualifiers has been hit by incidents of age-related cheating.

Up to 20 players have had their request to play in the Total-sponsored tournament turned down after it emerged they were above the age limit.

Players born on January 1^st 2002 or later are considered eligible.

The two Guineas and Gambia are the most affected following bone-tests done in Dakar a few days before the start of the tournament.

Liberia withdrew owing to funding issues.

Gambia and Guinea Bissau had seven players considered ineligible with the latter left with only eleven players in their 2-0 loss to Mali with just a single player on the substitutes’ bench.

The Scorpions lodged an appeal hoping to earn a rematch, complaining of visibility problem – a thing the organizing committee dismissed.

The Junior Elephants of Conakry had to make do with 12 players after a good chunk of their roster failed the Magnetic Resonance Imagery test.

Sierra Leone, Cape Verde, champions Mali and hosts Senegal are the only sides to have entered the correct players.

Winners of the regional qualifiers will seal a safe passage into the group stage proper of the continent’s U-17 Nations Cup with the four finalists to represent Africa for the 2019 World Cup to be staged in Peru.