How Many Rings On That Nigerian Tree Again?

August 26th, 2009 | by: chris | Comments(5)

If someone were to announce that a significant number of African footballers have slightly fictitious birth certificates, nary a gasp would be heard in the room. When matters like birth certificates are handled all loosey goosey (technical term) and date of births more a guesstimate than exact science, it’s easy to see how some would want to take advantage of this to make some money, win a few more trophies. But just how many might be worth a slight gasp: 15 of 38 players have been booted from the Nigerian U-17 football team for age cheating before the FIFA U17 World Cup.

It gets particularly bad in that Nigeria is hosting the tournament as defending champions, meaning expectations were sky-high. Worse yet, their group includes such giants as Germany and Argentina. Bad juju all around.

This all came about through MRI age determination testing conducted recently, and the total of 15 is actually a bit less than speculated. It was originally thought Nigeria would be showing up at the tourney with precisely 7 players in town, but at least now they can field a full team.

The “guilty”:

Kabiru Borgo, Abiodun Akanda, Ariyo Olubukola, Habeeb Bello, Deji Joel, Yakubu Azeez, Ogungbe Ganiyu, Orji Kalu, Justice Chinedu, Chinedu Udegha, Amadi Moses, Solomon Enudi, Dubem Awaziem, Esse Joseph Junior and Olaitan Gambari

The only next course of action is to release the actual determined ages of these players so we can chuckle when it’s revealed a bunch of 30 year olds were trying to pass off as 16. It’ll be like 90210 all over again.

There’s another worry about this finding which will probably be looked at once the furor of the upcoming tournament dissipates: the Nigerian kiddie teams have been good in recent history. Really damn good. In fact they’ve won this particular tournament three times since 1985, a feat only equaled by those Brazilian cats, who tend to be half-decent at the football thing. Chances are some of their recent successes will be up for review (though what can be done about it is a mystery).

But the good news is the FIFA U-17 World Cup isn’t until late October, so Nigerian authorities will have ample time to find players in their mid-20’s who will be able to pass the tests with flying colors.