Using simple logic and 's principle of parsimony, it was easy to theorize that countries from a certain region in Africa resorted to age forgery. However, this is what the court of law calls circumstantial and it would never hold in court. Here's what will.

An Age-Old Story

Early this year, Cameron born Youssoufa Moukoko was accused of forging his age. Around 11 days later, Cameroon ejected 32 players for failing age tests for a football tournament. Those two incidents, as huge as they sound, are merely the tip of the iceberg.

All the way back in 1988, FIFA suspended the Nigerian FA from international participation for two years after discovering that the team the FA sent to the 1988 Olympics included 3 players who were over the allowed age. You might be wondering how was Nigeria caught. The hilarious answer is that those same players participated in previous Olympic events under the same name but at a different age.

What prompted Pele to predict an African nation to win the World Cup at some point was that Nigeria had won the 1985 U-17 World Cup and played the 1987 U-17 World Cup final and lost. Now, Pele has made a lot of dumb statements and predictions, God bless his soul, the legend was a living creature filled with dumb statements post-retirement. However, his prediction here made sense if we take away the aspect of age forgery. The reason Pele's prediction didn't come true wasn't that Pele was making another dumb statement, or that African countries are backward, or even the world was racist, it was simply because the foundation of that prediction wasn't real.

In the 1987 U-17 World Cup, the best player of the Tournament award was given to Philip Osondu. After he won it, he joined RSC Anderlecht and his transfer value and performance declined very shortly afterwards like the many examples we saw in the previous post. Eventually, he died in 2019 at the age of "48". There are many MANY players that came through Nigeria's age-level team with similarly sad stories and outcomes. And it extends beyond Nigeria.

In 2013, Lazio signed Nigerian midfielder Joseph Minala at the age of "17". I can't upload his picture here, but please check him because there were many speculations that the man's age was actually 42. He was of course investigated and quickly cleared of accusations because his official birth certificate said that he was 17. Please check his photo to see how he looked when was dubbed a "wonder kid". His career obviously declined shortly afterwards and he's currently playing in Serie C. Just the regular career path of any wonder kid when turned 26.

In 2009, Tumang Bokaba, a South African journalist, wrote a long report for Bleacher Report where we exposed and explored the phenomena of age-cheating in Africa and confirmed that it also happens in his own country, South Africa. Same thing was confirmed by Gomezgani Zakazaka, head of competitions and communications at the Malawi Federation when he spoke with CNN.

In that same CNN report, Ivorian journalist Mamadou Gaye said

I’d even say that it would be fair enough for Africa to return all those trophies to FIFA [the seven U-17 titles won by Nigeria and Ghana] because it’s obvious and very clear that it was won through cheating.

So, age cheating does happen at an extensive rate. It has been proven and punished many times but doesn't seem to stop or even slow down. The question becomes:

Why Does Age Cheating Happen?

I am not the best person to speak on this, but I think the reasons are obvious, poverty and chaos.

Cameron, for example, has 40% of its population living under the poverty line. The country's local league has virtually no money. In a report for The Athletic, Cameronian journalist, Bambe Wanneh Giovanni, said that there are only 3 football clubs in Cameron could pay their salaries on a steady basis, just a steady basis, not high salaries.

Add to that the fact that there's almost an unwritten rule that no player leaves Africa for Europe after the age of 19-20. Thus, those players' clubs or agents, spend a little money to create a false birth certificate so they could get the little commission or transfer they can get. As I said before, the deeper you go into this, the simpler every answer gets as, besides agents or clubs making some money, these players and their families would escape poverty.

With the age advantage, it becomes easy for those players to outperform other players of the "same age". That happens because a player reaches his top physical level at the age of 21-23 and his top mental abilities at 28-30. So, if you're 21 years old or older, it's very easy for you to outdo your young colleagues.

The math is simple really for those players really. If they leave for some Belgian or Swiss and played the duration of one contract, that's five years, they'd make enough money to escape poverty with their families forever. They're not looking for glory for themselves, their country, or their continent, they'd just trying to survive poverty. If they reach the level of playing for a top European club at 25-26 before ending their careers early, so what?

Through the reputation of playing in Europe's top leagues, globalization allows more financial opportunities in countries like Belgium, Switzerland, China, the USA, Mexico, Australia, UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and so on. All countries where they would make more money in a month than they'd make in years back in their countries.

To be honest, I don't really have such a problem with those players, morally. Taking the countries' economical situation into consideration on one hand, and the fact that the countries these players escape often played a huge part in their home countries' horrible statues on the other, I don't really mind it. I mean, obviously, it's lying and deceiving and that makes it wrong. But, I am not really in a position to judge what I am saying.

From that aspect, there's no huge moral dilemma. However, there's one when you build a global reputation based on such deception, but more on that in the next part.