Cameroon just latest age cheats foiled by FIFA MRI scans
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It has been a hugely embarrassing episode for the proud nation of Cameroon and its ‘Indomitable Lions’ football teams.
His Under-17 team was preparing to play Central Africa’s qualifying matches in the Nations Cup this month when it was discovered that 21 of the 30 strong teams failed age tests.
Coach Jean Pierre Fiala quickly recruited new players but, in further humiliation, 11 of the signings were also found to be of legal age.
Cameroon’s soccer president Samuel Eto’o was shocked by the news that 32 players from his country’s under-17 team have failed age tests ahead of their matches this month.
It has turned out to be an embarrassing episode for the Cameroonian football federation, Fecafoot.
It has left Fiala scrambling for enough players to field a team as Cameroon prepares for matches against Congo, Chad, DR Congo and the Central African Republic in just a few days.
All this reflects poorly on Cameroon and has made global headlines, but the crusade to eradicate the practice of falsifying age in player records, led by national hero Samuel Eto’o, is sincere and noble.
They are far from the cheaters of the first age in football. There have been many cases in Africa, Asia and the Americas, especially in youth football, where older and therefore often bigger and stronger players make the difference.
However, it feels like the network is closing in on scammers, thanks to medical technology.
In 2009, FIFA introduced nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) at the U-17 World Cup to determine whether or not players were of legal age.
In his role at Fecafoot, Eto’o has been desperately trying to eradicate the problem of age fraud.
MRIs of players’ wrists look at how fused the bone structure is, and the tests are considered to be 99 percent accurate up to age 17.
Former FIFA chief medical officer Jiri Dvorak he co-authored an article on the subject in 2006.
Nigeria hosted the 2009 World Cup and tried to resist MRI tests. With good reason, as it turned out that 15 players on his team were of legal age and had to be released.
Despite the implementation of such scans before continental and world youth tournaments, some nations have been left out.
In December 2010, Senegal had to withdraw three players from their under-17 squad after they failed age tests.
Guinea lost their place in the 2019 U-17 World Cup after the ages of two players in the U-17 Africa Cup of Nations were found to have been falsified.
Age or identity fraud remains a major source of concern for African football as a whole.
In Asia, where age detection techniques were introduced as early as 2000, age cheating was found to be common.
North Korea, Tajikistan and Iraq were expelled from the 2008 AFC Under-16 Championship after it was discovered that they and five other nations had fielded over-age players in the qualifying round. Yemen was expelled from the royal tournament for the same offence.
But these were just the latest in a long line of age cheating incidents in soccer.
Mexico was disqualified from the 1990 World Cup due to the Cachirules scandal in which its under-20 team knowingly fielded at least four over-age players.
Nigerian youth teams were banned by FIFA in 1989 after they altered the birth dates of several players at the 1988 Olympics from certificates seen for the same players in previous tournaments.
Cameroonian ‘Peter Pan’ International Tobie Mimboe Gets Younger With Each Passing Competition
Nor is it the first time that Cameroon has been involved in all this. There was the hilarious case of Tobie Mimboe, nicknamed ‘Peter Pan’, who got younger and younger with each passing tournament.
And in 2017, Cameroon’s federation Fecafoot prevented 14 players from going to the AFCON Under-17s in Gabon after tests failed.
When Eto’o, the former Barcelona, ββInter Milan and Chelsea striker who played 118 times for his country, became Fecafoot president in December 2021, he vowed to take decisive action to crack down on the illegal practice.
Statements following this latest embarrassment made it clear that the MRI tests were carried out following Eto’o’s “strict instructions” “to put an end to the manipulation of civil status records that has, in the past, tarnished the image of the pinnacle of Cameroonian football.’
So this short-term pain for Cameroon should lead to long-term gain as they clean up their act and set an example for other nations.
All of which begs the question: why cheat in the first place?
One simple reason is precisely that: cheating to win football matches and tournaments, an appetite for gaining the prestige that comes from success.
Another theory that has been put forward is that it levels the playing field for African footballers who want to reach the top of the game.
The episode has been embarrassing for Cameroon as a nation and for its soccer teams.
Scouts for all the major European clubs scour Africa for talented players and an offer to move there is transformative for someone who might have grown up poor without access to proper football equipment or training.
It should also be considered that in some nations, birth records are simply not kept, so it would be incredibly difficult for a player to prove their true age, even if they wanted to.
But the advent of near-flawless technology for determining the age of players should stamp out the practice, if Cameroon’s high-profile embarrassment doesn’t act as enough of a deterrent.