Age-cheating shocks Tanzania
Emmanuel Muga - BBC Sport, Dar es Salaam.
Bakari's case prompted Tanzania's disqualification from Gambia 2005. An investigation into the extent of age-cheating in Tanzanian football has come up with findings that have shocked officials of the country's federation. Crescentius Magori, the vice-president of the Tanzania Football Federation (TFF), has said the 'majority' of players in the national U-17 side, which was disqualified from this year's African Youth finals in Gambia, were over-age. The Confederation of African Football (Caf) disqualified Tanzania from the tournament in May after discovering that an over-age player, Nurdin Bakari, had been used in the qualifying rounds. After losing their subsequent appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas), the TFF appointed a probe team to investigate the existence of age-cheating in the squad.
The committee's investigation included interviewing the players' parents, their school teachers, the coaches and the players themselves.The report was submitted to the TFF about two months ago and its contents are yet to be made public. Yet this week, Magori exclusively revealed to BBC Sport some of the report's findings. "We have received a very detailed report which gives a general picture that the majority of the players in the U-17 team were over-age," he said. "Some had played in the premier league for four years and we are shocked by these findings." "The committee found that there was no proper system of identifying and selecting players for the national junior sides.
"Coaches picked the players randomly from some teams without paying too much attention to their ages." Yet Magori believes that the report may prove to be a cloud with a silver lining. "It is good that we are now aware of this reality," he told BBC Sport. "We are going to be strict and we hope that after two years, we will be able to get the right players for different age-category competitions."
Posted by: Mara at December 30, 2005 00:31 |
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