BEVERLY HILLS, February 14, (THEWILL) – Last month, Nigeria’s representation in the West African Football Union (WAFU) competition for young players, the Under-17 Golden Eaglets, struggled and failed to qualify on their own merits in the qualifiers out of the West African sub-region. It was the second straight WAFU qualifying series that a team from Nigeria, in an age-range competition, was falling below expectations. It was one too many.
The disturbing trend which began with Nigeria’s Under-20 national team, the Flying Eagles, crashing out of the U-20 African Cup of Nations (AFCON) and the U-20 World Cup after they failed to make the cut in the U-20 AFCON qualifiers previously, continued without improvement but with the similar disappointment by the Under-17s, the Golden Eaglets.
The Flying Eagles crashed out of the 2022 U-20 AFCON in Mauritania and, by implication, the 2021 U-20 World Cup in Indonesia after they failed to make the cut in the U-20 AFCON qualifiers of the WAFU Group B series in Benin Republic contested in December, last year. Because the Ladan Bosso-led team had lost both of their first two fixtures against the Black Satellites of Ghana and the Junior Elephants of Cote d’Ivoire, their chances of qualification depended on Ghana beating the Ivorians by at least a two-goal margin. Instead, it was the Ivorians that won.
As for the U-17s, the Golden Eaglets were held to a 1-1 draw by the Black Satellites of Ghana in the final group game of the WAFU B Tournament in Lome, Togo. In analogous fashion to the fate of their older counterparts, the result effectively put their chances of qualifying for the next round of the competition in serious jeopardy. After playing in a deadlocked tie for the entire first half, there were 13 minutes left on the clock in the second when the Eaglets thought they had done enough to earn all three points after striker Joseph Arumala gave them the advantage from the penalty spot.
In the lead-up to the qualifiers, the centre-forward Arumala was the team’s leading scorer, with five goals in as many friendlies. He composed himself and converted from 12 yards sublimely. However, they could not hold on to their lead to see out a win. Their slim lead was cut short in the 84th minute when the very impressive Eaglets goalkeeper Destiny Emuwahen committed a foul inside the box, and from the resulting penalty the Ghanaians got the equaliser.
It was an all too familiar set of circumstances all over again. In these youth competitions that Nigeria’s U-17s and U-20s used to be fearsome opponents and took teams on the continent to the cleaners, things have become so bad that once again Nigeria had to wait for the outcome of the last group match between Cote D’Ivoire and Ghana to discover whether they qualified to the next round. Fortunately, coach Fatai Amoo’s U-17 Golden Eaglets that had managed to secure only one point after losing by a lone goal against the Little Elephants of Cote d’Ivoire and drawing 1-1 against the Black Starlets of Ghana, were handed a lifeline for qualification out of the WAFU B series when Cote d’Ivoire beat Ghana 3-1 allowing the Nigerian boys to qualify by way of superior goal difference. This gave the team a shot at redemption by qualifying them for the semi-finals and for the Total U-17 AFCON to be hosted in Morocco.
Yet, it remained a painful position to be in, where for the umpteenth time, the outcome for a Nigerian team was entirely out of their hands and depended wholly on the results from the clash of other teams. It did not use to always be like this. There were times when Nigeria youth sides qualified ahead of the rest and simply waited on other matches to know their next challengers. But, the glory days have indeed gone.
Nigeria’s U-17s were formidable in the era of their rise to prominence. The team won the maiden edition of the FIFA U-17 World Cup in 1985 in China, at a time when it was still known as the Under-16 competition. They followed that success with more victories at the 1993 and 2007 editions. Then, Nigeria failed to qualify in 2011 but returned to win it in 2013 and 2015. By taking the trophies in the last two editions of 2013 and 2015, Nigeria became the second country to win and defend it the succeeding year for back-to-back trophies and the only one to win the junior world cup five times in all. On African soil, while they were runners-up in 1995, they took the trophy in 2001 and again in 2007.
Since then, the Golden Eaglets have dropped out of reckoning. There has to be some procedural explanation to account for this fall from grace. The general decline in almost every aspect of Nigerian life is a pointer to how this must have come about. Yet, there is also the issue of age falsification to consider. This is of grave concern because even in the planning for the 2013 edition of the U-17 World Cup that Nigeria won, the Eaglets’ camp was thrown in disarray when key members of the squad were determined by the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanning technology to be over-aged and had to be dropped from the team.
In 2016, the ugly circumstance of age-related dishonesty reared its head again for the U-17s. This time around no less than 26 players of the 60-strong squad were sent home from their training camp because they failed the mandatory MRI scan tests for age-range determination just before an AFCON qualifier. The embarrassment aside, it bears thinking about with a preponderant weight of the reoccurrence of this sort of cheating in mind. The question can be raised of the distant possibility that Nigeria had the unfair advantage of previously fielding players who used ages far below their real ages in these age-range youth competitions. With that, it was easier to beat all comers and win these tournaments.
This is a case of age fraud, which is the use of false documentation to gain an advantage over an opponent and, in sports with age-range competitions, it is a conventional practice in countries where records are not easily verifiable. It allows older players to enter youth competitions often benefitting from an unfair advantage due to their greater physical maturity compared to the players of the proper age. Although, there are cases where the lack of proper documentation actually makes it impossible for some players to know their exact dates of birth and often leads to approximation and estimation for use on official documents, the common practice is to cheat the other.
Nigeria’s worst case of age fraud dates back to 1989 when Nigeria’s youth national teams were slammed with a FIFA ban for fielding three over-aged players at the 1988 Olympics, whose birth dates varied from the dates they claimed at previous tournaments. The two year ban was not as painful as losing the hosting rights for the 1991 FIFA World Youth Championship as punishment after everything it did to win those rights. Portugal, who were defending champions, gained from Nigeria’s loss by picking up hosting responsibilities.
The use of the MRI scans was introduced by FIFA in 2009 for the U-17 World Cup and has assisted the world football governing body to more precisely ascertain if players are over-aged or not. With a 99% accuracy until the age of 17, the MRI has been an exceptional tool in age-range football. Medically, all bones in the arm and leg have end plates from which these bones grow. At the completion of the bone growth, by age 17 to 18, the end plates disappear on the MRI scans. For the 1% of the time, it might make a false call but the benefits far outweigh that negligible and rare occurrence.
With better MRI scanning technology to limit these sorts of cheating, Nigeria appears unable to compete favourably on a level playing field. What gives this position more plausibility is the embarrassment that the country suffered again in December, last year. 40 out of the 60 boys pencilled down as part of the Golden Eaglets contingent failed the mandatory MRI age test. It aligns with the accusations that have been labelled against the Nigeria Football Association (NFF) by individuals who know the subject well enough to be quoted as authorities in their own right.
The Super Eagles coach, German Gernot Rohr, has been quoted as bemoaning the damage age fraud does to the grooming of the future stars of Nigerian football. A former President of the NFF (at a time when it was the Nigeria Football Association) and who had the shortest tenure of a Football Administrator in the country because he was impeached by the Board after less than three months on the job, Anthony Kojo Williams, confirmed to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) “We use over-age players for junior championships.” Also, a former Super Eagles player and current football manager, Adokie Amiesimaka, supported the accusation and put the blame squarely on the heads of the NFF.
The truth is that part of the reason many African senior national teams have under-achieved on the international level can be traced to incessant and widespread age fraud at the youth level of competitive football as so few of their youngsters can compete at the highest level in any manner of longevity that can provide them the ability to become achievers at the senior level with the passage of time. Nigeria is a perfect example. Winning five youth championships at the FIFA World Cup level, with the latest in 2015, and never being able to reach the quarter-final stage of the senior men’s World Cup tells the story by itself. The expected replication of that youthful triumph at the senior level has not come to be because these older “boys” do not even make it to the senior team by which time their ages have caught up with them and the agility to prosecute big games is no longer available.
This, among other concerns, is something that must not be allowed to continue. Sunday Dare, the Honourable Minister of Youth and Sports Development must liaise with the Amaju Pinnick-led NFF to address cheating on age-range competitions and all other sundry issues plaguing youth football to ensure that Nigeria avoids the continued dwindling of her football fortunes like what have happened recently to the youth teams. To provide legal backing for the steps that must be taken to bring an end to the malaise, the National Assembly ought to be carried along so that they can enunciate appropriate legislation to bolster the efforts of the sports administrators in the country to extricate from the country’s records this cancerous malignancy that has brought nothing but shame and embarrassment on Nigeria.
As many problems as beset Nigeria’s football, the determination to rid the age-range teams of age fraudsters is an all-important step that must be accorded the highest priority. An age-honesty programme must be put in place as “HONESTY” must become the byword for age-range competitions in the country and age falsification must be called out for the fraud it is and outlawed as same. Those boys are the future of the game for the country. If these issues are not addressed and arrested at this point, there can be no comfort for the one sport that brings joy, excitement and unity to millions of Nigerians and the country’s reputation as a footballing powerhouse on the continent and beyond will be a thing consigned to the dustbins of history.
Furthermore, the engagement of young and pliable children with a flair for football in the primary and secondary schools across the length and breadth of the country, especially in the government-run institutions of learning, will be of paramount importance and significance in providing more than enough number of ambitious and hungry young boys and girls who can form part of the next set of the U-17s representing the country honestly and patriotically. Regular sporting fiestas and tournaments that will incorporate these budding talents at the state level and culminate in a must-win final at the national level for the sake of discovering otherwise hidden talents who can go on to prosecute Nigeria’s age-specific competitions is one way to put the country’s association with age-cheating away for good.
About the Author
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
