The Confederation of African Football (CAF), has disqualified Chad’s Under-17 national team from the regional qualifying tournament for the 2023 U-17 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), following a fresh age cheating scandal that the team.
CAF announced the disqualification of Chad from the Central African Football Federations Union (UNIFFAC) qualifiers, citing a mass failure of the players in the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) age test results which turned out majority of the players were over aged.
In the announcement on Thursday, UNIFFAC, the body in charge of the regional qualifiers, stated that the Chadian team was disqualified after MRI tests revealed that over 80% of the players failed the MRI tests which involves scanning the wrist of a player to study how advanced the bone structure.
The latest age frauds rocking under age football in Africa has also seen the Democratic Republic of Congo pulling out of the same tournament after 25 of the 40 players in camp were discovered to be older than 17 years.
A similar issue also rocked the Cameroon U-17 camp when 32 players were found to be over age outcomes of MRI tests ordered by Fecafoot President, Samuel Eto’o’s insistence on carrying out the MRI test.
The MRI scans were first introduced by FIFA during the 2009 U-17 FIFA World Cup in Nigeria as part of efforts to combat age manipulation in youth football competitions across the globe.
Roma manager, Jose Mourinho, has heaped praises on Nigerian forward, Victor Osimhen, after the striker scored a wonder goal which can potentially compete for the goal of the season in the Italian Serie A.
The former Chelsea boss said Osimhen, who is a target of one of his former clubs, Manchester United, can compare favourably with former Ivorian striker, Didier Drogba who terrorised defences in the English Premier League.
However, Mourinho said the only hindrance to the Napoli striker reaching legendary status is if he desists from “diving” to gain favours from referees.
“He is of the same level as Drogba, but Didier didn’t dive,” Mourinho told reporters after the game when asked to access the Super Eagles forward’s performance.
“If Victor changes, then OK. I’d buy him if I was at a club with a lot of money.”
“However, if he does go to England one day, he needs to change, because in Italy they put up with this sort of behaviour, whereas in the Premier League, they’d come down hard on him.”
“I told him that he scored a wonderful goal and needs to stop diving so much. His goal was fantastic, he did the same thing when we met earlier this season, so he’s a fantastic player. But he mustn’t dive,” the Portuguese coach said.
The red hot Osimhen, has scored 14 goals in 16 league matches, propelling Napoli to a healthy 13 point lead at the top of thr Serie A.
It was a night of shocks and history on Saturday at the ongoing African Nations Championship (CHAN) in Algeria when one of the tournament’s favourites, Ghana, was knocked out by outsiders, Niger Republic in a 2-0 defeat which saw the Nigeriens qualify for the semi-finals.
As if the shock was not enough, first-time qualifiers, Madagascar, thumped Mozambique 3-1 to also qualify for the semi-final in some style.
While Madagascar was dealing with Mozambique in Constantine, Niger shocked two-time runners-up, Ghana, in Oran to complete the last-four line-up alongside host, Algeria and Senegal.
Niger’s reward is a date with Algeria while Madagascar will square up against Senegal, both on Tuesday.
Though Algeria and Senegal are outright favourites to win the tournament meant for African footballers playing in their country of birth, pundits believe underating the so called minnows could spell doom as Ghana, Cameroon, DR Congo and other top playing nations found out the hard way.
Madagascar had earlier shocked Ghana and hammered Sudan to win Group C, while Niger had pulled up the shock of the group stages by sending Cameroon packing with a 1-0 victory in their last group D match.