DRC is the latest country to be rocked by the age cheating after they were unable to raise a team for the UNIFFAC tournament due to failed tests.
Age fraud in African football was exposed yet again when 25 out of 40 players failed the age test conducted by the Congolese Football Federation ahead of the u17 Cest African Football football tournament qualifiers.
As if that was not enough, only 5 of the 15 players who passed the test managed to complete the necessary administrative formalities required to allow them into the host nation Cameroon, forcing the organisers to reschedule the tournament.
This unfortunately shameful incident makes DRC the second African country in one week to chase some players from their camp after Cameroon were also forced to turn back player from their camp after 32 of them failed the age test and with 21 players falsifying their birth certificate in the first round of testing forcing a second round after which 11 were found to have cheated.
"it is an organisational nightmare because we have to come up with na new format that will have to involve 4 nations instead of the original 5," the organisers told BBC as quoted by the Sun, "we are happy that after the MRI scans, all four countries now have a team."
African countries have always been accused of cheating especially in junior tournaments and the organisers of the UNIFFAC tournament insisted on the MRI scan to ascertain the players ages.
With DRC out, the host nation Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo Brazzaville and Chad will now take part in the competition in which the matches were to take place between January 12th and January 24th.
FIFA introduced MRI scans which work by scanning the wrist to study how advanced in the 2009 u17 world cup in Nigeria.