pineapple stu
23/11/2003, 6:53 PM
Was reading an interesting article in the Times today about new measures being taken to detect underage cheating in the upcoming U-20s World Cup and other youth tournaments. There's a new device out now which can tell how old a person is to within a couple of months. Since it's come in, a few countries (particularly African and Asian ones) have curiously pulled out of some tournaments, and that Asian and African teams in general haven't had the same impact at underage level. There's been general allegations of 20-year-olds playing U-16 level and players in the mid-20s playing at U-20s! Nigeria have come out and admitted that they've done this, but have said they've now stopped as it does more harm than good in the long-term. I suppose if you look at Ghana's underage success (fourth in the U-20 World Cup in 1997) compared to the senior team, it might explain a lot!
The article goes on to say that it'll be interesting to see how the Irish team does in the UAE considering that Saudi Arabia and Mexico (who were banned from Italia '90 for playing overage players in a youth competition), who are two of our opponents, are two of the suspected biggest abusers. If it's true, it reasons, we should do a lot better than at previous World Cups.
The article goes on to say that it'll be interesting to see how the Irish team does in the UAE considering that Saudi Arabia and Mexico (who were banned from Italia '90 for playing overage players in a youth competition), who are two of our opponents, are two of the suspected biggest abusers. If it's true, it reasons, we should do a lot better than at previous World Cups.