Chad disqualified from U-17 AFCON qualifiers after age scandal
Chad have been disqualified from the Central African Football Federations Union (UNIFFAC) qualifiers, the region’s qualifying tournament for 2023 U-17 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), following a fresh age manipulation scandal in African football.
The body in charge of the regional qualifiers, UNIFFAC, confirmed to BBC Sport that Chad was eliminated from the tournament scheduled to start on Thursday, citing mass failure in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) age test results.
UNIFFAC stated MRI tests, scanning the wrist to study how advanced the bone structure is, were part of an in-tournament test instead of pre-tournament.
The latest massive age frauds battling football in Africa came less than 48 hours after DR Congo pulled out of the same tournament after 25 of the 40 players in camp were discovered to be older than 17 years, disrupting Congo’s participation in the five-team qualifiers.
A similar issue rocked the Cameroon U-17 camp when more than 30 players were found to be following overage outcomes of MRI tests ordered by former Barcelona and Inter Milan star Samuel Eto’o, president of the country’s football federation.
However, Cameroon rectified the situation and would compete in the tournament alongside the remaining two countries, the Central African Republic (CAR) and Congo-Brazzaville.
The top two nations of the remaining three countries in the five-nation regional tournament will qualify for the 2023 U-17 AFCON, billed to hold in Algeria from April 8 to 30.
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.
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