Age cheats sent out of Nigeria U23 camp

The Nigeria Football Federation came down heavy on age cheats in Nigeria U23 team who are currently in camp preparing for their Africa U23 Cup of Nations Qualifiers.

According to Owngoal Nigeria, a good number out of the 30 home-based players Coach Imama Amapakabo invited for the upcoming game against Libya this month were sent packing due to conflicting accounts about how old they are.

Owngoal gives an instance of a player “who was billed as an integral player but was released after few days of training with documents and several online sources pointing to the fact that he has been playing in the Nigeria Professional Football League since 2010.”

This is not the first time a Nigerian age-grade team has been accused of age cheating. In 2016, it was reported that almost half of the U17 team were caught through an MRI test to be older than they declared and were disqualified.