U-17 Tourney: No Age Fears For Nigeria

Nigeria has no fears about the ages of their players going into the 2013 African Under-17 championships.

CAF is to conduct MRI age-testing examination on all participating teams one day before the tournament kicks-off.

The scans of the bone density of wrists have been found to be accurate to within one percent for boys under the age 18.

The practice was first introduced by the continental governing body at the 2011 tournament in Rwanda.

Eight Gambian players failed that test.

Last year, it directed all national associations to conduct the test ahead of qualifiers. Eighteen players from Nigeria and 10 from Ghana failed the test and were culled from their respective squads.

Now, NFF Executive Committee member, Chris Green is confident the country has nothing to worry about.

“We did ours and all the boys in this squad passed, so we have no fear at all about the MRI test. In fact, we welcome it,” Green said.

“It is very unlikely that any of the payers will fail the test. But if it does, then we would ask for an independent assessment. And if it is confirmed, we would have to question the competence of the doctor who performed the test and his machine.

“Because we did not do it ourselves, we took it to the experts.”

The Golden Eaglets departed from Lagos on Wednesday morning for the tournament.

The team, which returned from a four-week, final training programme at the Aspire Academy for Sports Excellence in Qatar on Sunday, flew to Casablanca and then moved to Marrakech, venue of their Group B matches.