Kaizer Chiefs take action against age cheaters

A possible 10 over-age players may have represented the national under-17 football team in the past few years.

Some of the players come from Kaizer Chiefs and manager Bobby Motaung said the club had begun an inquiry into age-cheating and would do everything it could to eradicate the practice. Last week, Amakhosi expelled 10 players who had either falsified records or refused to assist in verifying their ages.

"We are taking this very seriously. We have shut down our under-13, 15 and 17 development academies and want to start with a clean slate next year.

"We asked these 10 players to come with us to home affairs to verify their dates of birth and they flatly refused. They suddenly demanded their clearance certificates and wanted to leave the club," said Motaung.

"We will call on the development coaches to give evidence and will also try to talk to those coaches who have left the club," he added.

Boitumelo "Big Six" Xaba was one of the players dropped from Amajimbos after Chiefs alerted Safa about their suspicions.

Xaba finished among the top three candidates in a talent search at the Gauteng future champions international under-17 tournament in February.

Xaba had been part of the national team in various camps, including the qualifiers against Namibia in February, Lesotho and the Burkina Faso match. Luckily, he did not play in any of the matches.

Chiefs have refused to release the full list of players until their inquiry has been concluded and there are fears that a number of the players might have featured in the national team.

This means Safa, unbeknown to them, may have fielded over-age players and could face serious Fifa and Caf sanctions.

Motaung said their four players who travelled with Amajimbos for the training camp in Argentina were summoned to home affairs on Friday to verify their ages. They are captain Nkululeko Tshangane, Maselaelo Seanego, Thabani Mthembu and Lorenzo Gordinho.

Amajimbos coach Solly Luvhengo confirmed Xaba had been dropped because they were suspicious over his age.

"We knew it was the case when Chiefs pulled him out of the squad and we dropped him. I also had to drop a player from KwaZulu-Natal and told him to try out with his under-20 peers. We don't want to destroy these players because they were lured into it by other people. They are too young to do it themselves.

"We rely on the clubs and the documents they bring. There are people at home affairs who organise these documents and it is difficult to see if they are fraudulent," said Luvhengo.

Other top PSL clubs are also suspected of having over-age players and have been challenged to get rid of the cheats.

"It is not only a Kaizer Chiefs problem. Other clubs know about it and it has been happening for a long time. We need to use technology and scrutinise documents otherwise we are going backwards as a country.

"We sat down with our coach (Vladimir Vermezovic) and realised this was the reason our development structures were not producing good players," said Motaung.