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Age Cheats: Ghana FA Boss To Ask FIFA To Ban Nigeria, Cote D’Ivoire

Ben Koufie says he will be recommending to the world football governing body; FIFA to place a ban on Nigeria and Cote D’Ivoire for playing … Continue reading Age Cheats: Ghana FA Boss To Ask FIFA To Ban Nigeria, Cote D’Ivoire


Ben Koufie says he will be recommending to the world football governing body; FIFA to place a ban on Nigeria and Cote D’Ivoire for playing over-aged boys at the just concluded U-17 World Cup to qualify for the competition.

The former Ghana FA chairman says any country whose fails the age test should be banned from the age-playing competition.

Magnetic Resonance Image (MRI) scans have been used by both FIFA and the Confederation of African Football to check on the true ages of players as the clampdown on age cheats intensifies.

Nine players from Nigeria, Cote D’Ivoire and Congo were banned from the African U-17 event after failing the MRI tests.

Nigeria and Cote D’Ivoire got to the finals of the U-17 tournament which was played on Saturday in Morocco with Ivory Coast emerging winners and with this it means Ivory Coast and Nigeria has booked a place in the World Cup to be held in the UAE later this year.

The Ghanaian who has been in the technical committees of both CAF and FIFA insisted that tougher punishments should be enforced for teams whose players fail MRI scans.

“I am going to make some recommendations to FIFA that it should just not be a matter of disqualifying players from tournaments when they have failed their MRI in a specific competition,” .

“If the players played in the qualifying matches for that competition, that team must be disqualified because it used disqualified players in the qualifying process.

“Once you are caught and it is proven that the player played in the qualifying matches then you have to be disqualified.

“I am worried about it because it is not fair at all to the youngsters. It is called U-17 because it is a development stage.

“If you now bring 20 to 25-year-olds to play in that competition then it is an injustice,” he added.

A former coach and administrator has been one of the sports figure that has always condemned age cheating in football as it doesn’t not promote winning.