The Confederation of African Football (CAF) released a statement to remind various national associations engaged in the U-17 Africa Cup of Nations, Tanzania 2019, about players age-limit.
Several teams and players in the past have been disqualified from qualifiers for breaching the provisions of article 40 of the U-17 African Championship prompting the football governing body to issue a reminder ahead of the qualifiers.
“Please be informed of the age limit of the players eligible to participate in the U-17 Africa Cup of Nations, Tanzania 2019,”CAF statement reads.
“Upper age limit: all players must be a maximum of 17 years by the end of the calendar year in which the competition is player (i.e all players of the teams were born on or after 1 January 2002.
“Lower age limit: all players must be at least 15 years old by the end of the calendar year in which the competition is played (i.e all players were born on or before 31 December 2004).”
For many years the competition has been thought to contain over-age players as countless tales of how players, care takers, player agents, parents, clubs, federation officials, medical personnel and the like alter player’s original birth certificates are well documented.
This dreadful vice has seen introduction of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) – which scans the wrist plate of players in 2011 in order to ensure strict compliance with the age stipulation for the competition which has seen several players sent home for failing age test during the finals.
Article 40 of the U-17 African Championship stipulates that a team which fields a player who does not fulfill the required conditions to take part in a match, shall lose the match and shall be eliminated from the Championship.
Tanzania, only the second East African nation to host the CAF Africa U-17 Championship will be looking to equal or even better Rwanda’s performance in this same tournament when they hosted it in 2011.
Back then Rwanda made it to the final falling to Burkina Faso 2-1 but had already secured a place at the 2011 Fifa U-17 World Cup in Mexico.
