Football Cheating and Retribution

Accusations of overaged players being fielded in under 17's international football tournaments have blighted Arab and African (especially Nigerian) football for years. So you would think that attempts by FIFA to tackle this issue would be welcomed in Africa, but guess what, Nigeria is having a public spat over the introduction of MRI bone scans to ascertain the ages of young (or not so young players).

The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) led by president Sani Lulu has rejected the use of MRI scans, while Sports Minister Sani Ndanusa has said that "We will not deviate from Fifa's requirement in terms of ascertaining players' true ages. Fifa wants MRI scans used and we're going to adhere to that, simple." I suspect that the Minister will win this fight....

The reason I have any interest in this story (apart from the obvious parallels with Nigeria's notorious reputation for fraud and Internet scams), is that in 1989 Scotlands under 16's team got to the final of this competition where they faced Saudi Arabia.

According to eye witnesses, there were gasps from the crowd when fully bearded Saudi 15 yr old's marched onto the field for the final. A friend told me that it looked as though there wasn't one single player under age 17 (at least) in the Saudi team, and some looked to be in their 20's!

Even now, twenty years later this 'robbery' still rankles over the border .....