THE ERA OF MRI IN NIGERIA UNDER-17 FOOTBALL

In recent years, accusations of age fraud have stunted Nigeria National Football team’s success at international age group tournaments. This is not restricted to Nigeria however, but Africa in general as a lot of football teams under the umbrella of Confederation of African Football (CAF) have been charged with same allegation at some point. In 2016, a whopping 26 membership of the Nigeria’s under-17 side failed an age test carried out ahead of an African Cup of Nation’s qualifier. This was widely regarded as a menace and disgrace to the African football associations and the continent at large as it represents the exact opposite of what the footballing world stands for “Fairness and Equality”.

Back to Nigeria, since entering the FIFA U-17 world cup championship in 1985, golden eaglet of Nigeria has been the most successful football team in the history of the tournament with five championship titles and three runners-up. But this fit has been widely criticized over the years due to the inability of Nigeria football team to replicate the same dominance with the senior team where age is not really a criterion. After all, it is the child of today that becomes the man of tomorrow, and the likes of Brazil, England and so on, are all living testimonies of good performances across their respective national teams.

In 2015 U-17 world cup, the former Mexico U-17 coach Raul Gutierrez accused the Nigeria wonder-kids of doing things no real under-17 player could do with the ball. In the same light, after defeating Iran with four goals to nil in 2013 U-17 world cup in UAE, the Iranian coach Ali Doustimehr cast doubts over the true age of the Golden Eaglet players. These are just few of many accusations in the last couple of years.

With improved global technology, the mandatory use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was introduced by FIFA in 2009 for the FIFA under-17 to help ascertain whether players are over age or not. A significant role of Nigeria youth team that led to the introduction of MRI for accrediting players' ages happened in 1989 and 1999. In 1989 Nigeria's youth national teams were banned by FIFA for fielding over-age players in FIFA-organised youth tournaments. The birth dates of three players at the 1988 Olympics were different from the ones used by those players at previous tournaments. The resulting ban lasted for two years and Nigeria was also stripped of its right to host the 1991 FIFA World Youth Championship.

In late 1999, Anthony Kojo Williams was appointed as head of the Nigeria Football Federation. He lasted less than three months in the job and was dismissed because, in NFF board member Zaria Sani's words "he has failed to carry the other board members along". In the 2010 BBC World service documentary Africa Kicks, Williams stated that the Nigerian Government was "afraid of change". He went on to say, "I don't see Nigerian football getting out of the quagmire, the problem it is in today is because it [corruption] is getting deeper and deeper and deeper. From time to time we get flashes where we do well in some competition with overage players and we celebrate. That was one of the issues I looked at, we can't keep using overage players. We use over-age players for junior championships, I know that. Why not say it? It's the truth. We always cheat. It's a fact. When you cheat, you deprive the young stars that are supposed to play in these competitions their rights”. These and many more led to the birth of MRI which works by scanning the epiphyseal plates of the wrist.

Although not completely, the introduction of the so called age fraud scanning has brought some sanity to the world of football when it comes to age falsification. Between 2013 and 2015, more than 28 Nigeria players have failed the MRI testing for the youth championships. Not only Nigeria, a lot of post MRI disqualifications were also reported from different parts of the world.

Needless to say that the new leadership of the Nigeria Football Federation has done a great job in following the FIFA MRI rule religiously. They were recently commended on the selection process of the newly recruited Golden Eaglet team as many Nigerians claimed majority of them looked under-17. While progress is being made in this regard, stricter measures should be expended to transform Nigeria U-17 team to a team of international pedigree and honour.

Alonge Rasaq Adebayo