The number of those excluded from the Cameroon national football team for under 17 years has risen to 32, after magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) tests showed that 11 additional players had faked their ages, and that their age exceeded 17 years.

And the president of the Cameroon Football Federation, Samuel Eto'o, imposed a special age test on all players who were called up to represent the youth team, which led to the discovery of one of the last "scandals" of African football.

And press reports revealed that 21 players were excluded after it was found that their age was older than what was authorized in the documents, out of 30 players who were summoned to carry the national team shirt and participate in a tournament for junior teams in the middle of the continent (UNIFFAC).

The scandal is widening

According to the British newspaper "Daily Mail", immediately after the exclusion of 21 players, the coach of the Cameroon national team for under 17 years, Jean-Pierre Fiala, summoned 11 other players to strengthen the team and enter a preparatory camp before the demonstration, before he was surprised by the failure of all the players to be selected. exclude them.

This scandal put the Cameroonian coach in a real dilemma a few days before the start of the tournament, and made him race against time in order to find qualified alternatives to participate in the demonstration.

Despite this, Cameroon was not excluded from the tournament, but officials have to send a new list of players.

President of the Cameroonian Football Federation Samuel Eto'o (Getty Images)

The Cameroon Football Federation issued a strongly worded statement calling on "all actors and club supervisors to respect the age of the players," and stressed its great keenness to combat the phenomenon of age fraud, which has long harmed the reputation of football in the brown continent.

And all the players who were summoned underwent recent medical examinations at the level of the wrists and measured bone growth, as the true age of the players is revealed through some bones that do not grow except at a certain age and it is impossible to appear before this age.

Ongoing controversy

Many African federations - including Cameroon - have always been directly accused of falsifying the ages of their Sunni teams, and the eligibility of a group of titles that have been crowned has been questioned, whether at the continental or global level.

The "Untamed Lions" team has previously won the African title in this age group on two occasions, and in the 2017 tournament, 17 players from the country were prevented from competing after failing an MRI test.

Cameroon was also subjected to harsh criticism from the Confederation of the game (CAF) for its refusal to offer a list of players under 20 and 17 years old.

21 out of the 30 Cameroon under 17 players selected for the AFCON qualifiers have been removed from the squad after lying about their age and failing the MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) test on bones, data is getting to determine the age of a person.

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And in 2019, a real crisis arose between the Cameroonian and Moroccan federations, after the latter accused him of falsifying the ages of the players and filed a complaint with “CAF” asking him to investigate the ages of the players immediately after a match that brought together the two teams in the African Cup finals for under 17 years that was held in Tanzania.

It is noteworthy that since his arrival to the presidency of the Football Association in his country, Samuel Eto'o raised the slogan of fighting corruption within the football community in the country.

This was not the first incident known to the round game in the continent, but rather that many incidents were witnessed in different stations, perhaps the most famous of which was the exclusion of the Guinea national team from the African Cup competitions for under 17 years in 2019 after it was proven that the ages of two players in the group had been falsified.

Years earlier, specifically in 1989, FIFA banned Nigeria from age group competitions after discovering that the birthdates of 3 of its players in the 1988 Olympics were different from those used by the players themselves in previous competitions.