FKF on the look out for age cheats in U-17 selection

The national Under-17 team selection will begin on Saturday at Nairobi’s GEMS Cambridge International School in Karen with stamping out age cheating the priority.

Selected players for the first time will be subjected to Magnetic Resonance Imaging scans to ascertain their ages as required by Confederation of African Football and Fifa next Wednesday.

Additionally according to Football Kenya Federation (FKF), they will be required to produce their original birth and relevant school certificates in a bid to stamp out cheating.

Kenya is preparing to field a team to take on the might of Cameroon in Yaoundé on August 5 in the first leg of their Under 17 Afcon qualifier.

“We are expecting appropriately 60 players from across the country to report to the camp beginning Friday and latest Saturday morning,” FKF chief executive, Robert Muthomi said.

The invited players were assessed from the FKF branches, a process that ended over the weekend with the provisional squad of 30 selected after the two-day exercise.

“Yes indeed it is true we have requested all the players to bring with them vital documents that will aid in ensuring that they are in the right age group for the competition,” the CEO explained.

The team will camp at Safaricom Stadium but will train at the GEMS grounds since the venue is booked for the GOtv Shield tournament beginning this weekend.

In April, Kenya was banned from the CAF Under 20 Afcon for fielding five over age players against Sudan in the qualifiers during a clash played at the Al-Merreikh Stadium that ended 1-1.

It was the first youth team under the Team Change FKF administration with president, Nick Mwendwa, acknowledging at the time they had learnt their lessons.

In 2003, CAF banned Kenya from all African youth competitions for a period of two years after the national U17 team was found to have fielded players who were over 20 for an Afcon qualifier.

The the biggest age cheating scandal in Kenyan football, the players involved insisted FKF’s forerunner, Kenya Football Federation (FKF) officials were aware of their real ages and played an active role in falsifying documents.

The then secretary general of the KFF, Hussein Swaleh, was banned from all CAF activities for three years for bringing the game into disrepute.