Age fraud stumps AIFF

[1]

AIFF technical director Rob Baan (left) has urged coaches to contribute in scouting talent.

An All India Football Federation U-14 camp received a big jolt when 84 of the 120 selected boys were found to be overage, some as old as 17.

“This has been prevalent for long. The state associations need to be more serious,” Colm Toal, head coach, youth development said at a five-day coaching seminar at Navi Mumbai.
The AIFF, keen to get youngsters for the four regional academies, examined over 170 boys from various age-group tournaments, U-14 fests and open trials since September 2011. The trials were conducted across the length and breadth of the country by AIFF technical director Rob Baan and Scott O’Donell, technical director, regional and elite academies.
The selected U-14 boys were then kept in a camp in Kalyani for over a month after which the list was filtered to a final list of 120. But a surprise lay in store when the boys were put to a medical test, with a majority of them found to be overage.
“It seems, we just need to conduct tests almost every day,” Toal shrugs. “The money went waste, the effort and energy went waste; it’s frustrating and discouraging for the development of the sport in the country.”
Toal hit the root of problem when he said, “It’s about the honesty of individuals. Be it the coaches, the administrators, somewhere people stay desperate to win even at the U-14 level. But at that level, it’s all about development than winning.”
Baan, meanwhile asked the coaches attending the seminar to help weed out the problem.
“All of you need to make me a promise. Promise me, all of you will come back to me within a month with a kid who you believe has the potential to play for India in the future,” he told the 65 coaches in attendance at the seminar. However, age verification remains a complicated process as echoed by AIFF medical consultant Dr Manabendra Bhattacharya.
“This is rampant across all age groups and all sports. But how do you stop it. Off-course, we can determine it by tests; tests which reveal the dental age, secondary sexual characters and the bone age.”