Age fraud in association football

Age fraud is a term for age fabrication or the use of false documentation to gain an advantage over opponents. In football, it is common amongst players belonging to nations where records are not easily verifiable. The media often refer to the player with false documentation as an "age-cheat".

There are several reasons why players choose to use false documentation. In countries that could be considered poor, European scouts are looking for young talented players to sign for a European club. The players know that there is a lesser chance of being signed if they are, for example, 23 years old as opposed to 17 years old as there would be less time for the club to develop the player.

FIFA say that "over-age players have been wrongly entered into various youth competitions, often benefiting from an unfair advantage due to their greater physical maturity compared to players of the proper age."

In some cases, it is possible for the player not to know their own date of birth and make an educated guess when it comes to gaining official documents.

One of the best known examples of a player falsifying documentations is Cameroon's international football defender Tobie Mimboe who held several documents during the course of his career that indicated he became younger as time went by.

In 1989 Nigeria's youth national teams were banned by FIFA for fielding over-age players in FIFA-organised youth tournaments. The birth dates of three players at the 1988 Olympics were different than the ones used by those players at previous tournaments. The resulting ban lasted for two years and Nigeria was also stripped of its right to host the 1991 FIFA World Youth Championship.

South African journalist Thomas Kwenaite uncovered several "age-cheats" representing South Africa who participated in an Under-15 age group tournament hosted in France. The captain of that side was a 24-year-old third-year University student from Port Elizabeth. After revealing the age of the player, the player's father took Kwenaite to the South African press ombudsman for "slander" before withdrawing his complaint after it was found that school records show that the player would have started school aged 2 years old. Kwenaite also claims that he was told that he was "unpatriotic" for reporting the story.

In late 1999, Anthony Kojo Williams was appointed as head of the Nigeria Football Federation. He lasted less than three months in the job and was dismissed because, in NFF board member Zaria Sani's words "he has failed to carry the other board members along" In the 2010 BBC World service documentary Africa Kicks, Williams stated that the Nigerian Government were "afraid of change". He went on to say, "I don't see Nigerian football getting out of the quagmire, the problem it is in today is because it [corruption] is getting deeper and deeper and deeper. From time to time we get flashes where we do well in some competition with overage players and we celebrate. That was one of the issues I looked at, we can't keep using overage players. We use over-age players for junior championships, I know that. Why not say it? It's the truth. We always cheat. It's a fact. When you cheat, you deprive the young stars that are supposed to play in these competitions their rights."

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Wikipedia