FIFA U-17 AYC: Ghana Plots Cote d’ Ivoire Nigeria, Ban

Former Ghana FA chief Ben Koufie is going to recommend to FIFA that Nigeria and Ivory Coast are banned from playing in the Under-17 World Cup because they age-cheated their way to qualify for the competition.

Magnetic Resonance Image (MRI) scans have been used by both FIFA and the Confederation of African Football to check on the true ages of players as the clampdown on age-cheats intensifies.

Nine players were banned from the African Under-17 event after failing tests recently.

Now Nigeria and Ivory Coast have qualified for the World Cup to be held in the United Arab Emirates later this year and have gone on to reach Saturday’s Final in Morocco.

Koufie wants FIFA to enforce tougher punishments for age-cheats and their countries taking part in age-group competitions.

“I am going to make some recommendations to FIFA that it should just not be a matter of disqualifying players from tournaments when they have failed their MRI in a specific competition,” Koufie said

“If the players played in the qualifying matches for that competition, that team must be disqualified because it used disqualified players in the qualifying process.

“Once you are caught and it is proven that the player played in the qualifying matches then you have to be disqualified.

“I am worried about it because it is not fair at all to the youngsters. It is called U-17 because it is a development stage.

“If you now bring 20 to 25-year-olds to play in that competition then it is an injustice,” he added.

The former Black Stares boss has been a strong critic of age-cheating over the years and believes the problem lies not only with dishonest player’s but also with coaches and administrators.

“Coaching at this level must be taken seriously because that is the formative stage. The U-17 is not a must-win area,” he said.

“It should be a chance for the boys to learn at a competitive level, that is the assessment. We are incorrectly using it now as a real competition where they must win.

“Sometimes in football you lose in order to learn and in the process learn to win. They may lose but they must learn from their losses,” he says.

All four teams – champions Ivory Coast, runners-up Nigeria, Tunisia and Morocco – have qualified for the FIFA Under-17 World Cup in United Arab Emirates from 17 October to 8 November.