Zim under 17 team disqualified by COSAFA for age cheating

The Zimbabwe under 17 national soccer team has been disqualified from the 2020 Cosafa tournament after MRI scans revealed age anomalies. Zimbabwe has been disqualified together with Eswatini, Botswana, and the Comoros Islands.

In accordance with new competition rules if a nation is found with 1 or more players that are deemed to be over age the participating nation will be automatically disqualified. The development has led to a reset in the competition format which will now begin on Sunday.

According to COSAFA the four disqualified nations had at least one player fail their magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans that were conducted in the host country prior to the start of the competition. MRI scans are used across the world to determine whether players are eligible for Under-17 competitions in particular.

Doctors look for bone fusions in the human wrist, which are highly unlikely to occur before the age of 17 with a more than 99% accuracy rate. The country’s disqualification will come as a huge embarrassment for the nation and the age -cheating scandal is expected to attract government attention.