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Women have been
playing football for well over a hundred years, long before the first
women’s World Cup took place in China in 1991. The introduction of
age-grade tournaments, first the U-20s in 2002 and then the U-17s in
2008, was meant to act as a breeding ground for young girls aspiring to
be stars.

But just as it has
happened and continues to happen in the men’s game, age cheats have
crept into women’s football and world football’s governing body, FIFA,
are not shying away from combating the menace as they have decided to
face it head-on ahead of this year’s U-17 World Cup taking place in
Trinidad and Tobago.

The device to be
used in this momentous age-detection exercise is known as the Magnetic
Resonance Imaging tests; otherwise known as the MRI scan, which when
applied on the bone, usually around the wrist area, work out the age of
a player.

MRI for women

It emerged last
week that FIFA had commenced tests aimed at ultimately ending
age-cheating in youth tournaments and had sent medical teams to
different parts of the world to conduct researches aimed at cracking
down on the menace.

An official of the
Zurich based organisation, Dr. Yacine Zerguini who was in Tanzania to
execute the exercise said: “MRI of the wrist is a simple, reliable,
valid and non-invasive method of age determination in young male
football players, and now FIFA wants to find out if the technique can
be used in women football.” Explaining how the study was conducted,
Zerguini said that by measuring the fusion of bones around the wrists
one will be able to determine whether a player is actually under 17,
adding that the fusion of bones normally takes place for people who are
above 17 years, which means if the fusion of bones has already taken
place in the player’s wrist, such a player must have passed that age.

Not for the first time

It won’t be the
first time FIFA will be attempting to combat age cheats with the MRI
scan as they had previously utilized most recently at last year’s FIFA
U-17 World Cup for boys in Nigeria, but to what degree of certainty can
the MRI scan work out the age of footballers? FIFA, at the end of the
U-17 tournament in Nigeria declared that no age cheats were discovered
through the tests that were randomly carried out on players over the
course of the tourney but there is enough reason to doubt the verdict
reached by the world body especially in the light of disclosures by
former international Adokie Amiesimaka that the captain of the Nigerian
team Fortune Chukwudi was much older than the age she claimed to be.

There were also
other instances such as the case of Deji Joel who after he was listed
among those who had initially failed the MRI scan carried out by the
Nigeria Football Federation on Golden Eaglets players prior to the
cadets’ tournament, ended up featuring at the tourney.

“No one has been
able to prove whether these teams cheat or not but it is not beneficial
in the end for anyone who does and I believe it’s one of the reasons
why an African side has been unable to win the World Cup, whether for
men or women,” said former Nigeria international Nduka Ugbade in a chat
with NEXTSports.

He then added:
“There are also other reasons why we haven’t done so well such as the
poor management of the sport by administrators but a lot of these
players pass their prime long before they get to play for the senior
team.”

South Africans protest

South Africa
recently lodged a protest to FIFA against Nigeria claiming that some
members of the Nigerian women’s U-17 team who had secured qualification
for the World Cup at South Africa’s expense had previously played in
matches at U-20 or U-23 level.

The petition did
not come as a surprise to many observers after the South African coach
Solly Lovengo, in the aftermath of his side’s 5-0 loss, claimed during
a post-match interview at the end of the first leg encounter in
Abeokuta that Nigeria had fielded a “mature team” against his girls.

Nigeria also won
the return leg encounter but with a less embarrassing 2-1 score line
and the South Africans were left with no choice but to lodge a protest
to FIFA.

FIFA however threw
out their protest. “Their protest had no basis because our team was
made up of young players. Had they been older it would have been a
different scenario,” said NFF secretary general Bolaji Ojo-Oba.

Prime suspects

But the root of
this syndrome can be traced to the desire to win at all costs by
coaches and countries, as well as parents desirous of saying goodbye to
poverty; parents who will go to any length to falsify the age of their
children and wards.

And as this trend
is inherent in a society where dishonesty pays; a society smeared by
dubious ethical standards, it comes as no surprise that countries from
Africa, Asia and South America are always the prime suspects.

“Poverty is what
drives players to cheat,” remarked Ojo-Oba. “Coming from poor
backgrounds, cheating is the only option left for them as that is the
only way they believe can take them away from poverty.

“In the past it was
difficult to determine the true ages of players because we could only
depend on their birth certificates, but with the MRI scan we can at
least be certain of the age of those that will be representing us,” he
added.

Sports minister
Ibrahim Bio recently made it mandatory for all athletes representing
the country at age-grade events to undergo a mandatory age verification
test and the NFF will be following this directive to the letter,
according to Ojo-Oba.

This means every
member of the U-17 women’s team will be subjected to an age
verification test before the final list of players gets sent to FIFA.

And should that be
the case, and there is no reason to believe the reverse will be the
case, then there should be no cause for alarm as Nigeria’s reputation
will not be thrown in the mud. But should the watching world expect a
scandal at the U-17 World Cup in Trinidad and Tobago from any of the
other countries that will be competing at the tourney?

One can only wait and see whether FIFA’s aim of setting up a
separate championship for teenagers which, by the way, is to develop
players and expose them to top flight football at a young age, will be
achieved by the end of the championship on September 25, 2010.