Age-group Soccer and integrity

Today in Korea,the Nigerian under-17 soccer team defeated Spain to lift the trophy.It was the 3rd time lucky as Nigeria had previously won twice:1985 and 1993.I personally think that these age-group competitions have never been able to capture the imagination or attention of the viewing public.It's even worse than college basketball or college football as compared to the NBA or NFL in the US.
What this article is about is not the skill of the finalists in this 'epic' final,rather it's about it's continued relevance or otherwise given the less than honest attitude of several participating countries towards team selection and age verification.

I can definitely talk about the Nigerian team where there is no way even half of those lads can be younger than 20 years old.Anyone born and raised in Africa will be able to tell you that neither Nigeria's Macaulay Chrisantus nor Ghana's Ossei are likely to be teenagers...and that's without recourse to carbon-dating techniques.It's perhaps illuminating to find that these two pocketed 2 of the top awards at the closing ceremony.I suspect the voters for the MVP award also had similar sentiments as they unanimously voted German captain Tony Kroos as best player in the tournament ahead of the above mentioned duo.I gather votings were pretty close though...Kroos beat Christansus by 25 votes to 24!

This brazen dishonesty is why Nigerian football stars have an ultra short career.Samson Siasia was at the 1983 U-21 championships in Mexico with Romario...and while the dimunitive brazillian striker was not particularly an epitome of discipline throughout his career,yet when he was ruling the world in 1994,Siasia and Co had to be content with the African Nations Cup.These days,Romario is still playing for Vasco after age 40,recently scoring his much disputed 1000th career goal.Needless to say that Siasia,Yekini and all the guys in Nigeria's 1994 world cup squad never made it that long,in fact Siasia recently took to management and led his U-20 team to defeat by Argentina in 2005.

One of the guys in this victorious Nigerian team is registered as an HND student in a Nigerian Polytechnic.In a country where kids spend forever to pass exams to enter college,coupled with ceaseless strike action by University and Polytechnic staff,claiming that this lad is U17 is a laughable prank.FIFA needs to do more to verify the sincerity of its member confederations and nation members to restore the public's trust in these events or we will continue to witness less than 35,000 spectators at the finals(like today's)....about the same number that paid money to watch the senior Brazil national team TRAINING in Croatia and Hungary weeks ago.

Enough said.

OMC