http://www.bbc.co.uk...e-older-than-17
Half of the Nigerian U17 players have failed an MRI age test.
To understand the magnitude of the age fraud, it's helpful to understand the details of the age test.
Sometime between age 17 and early 20s, two plates in a boy's wrists fuse. This is not the case for girls, interestingly, so no age test has been devised for girls.
0.4% of boys under 17 have fused wrist plates. About a fourth of 19 year olds have fused plates. Over half of boys are still unfused at 20. These figures have been shown to be consistent across nations and ethnicities.
FIFA has decided to "sacrifice" the 0.4% of early fusers (fused by age 17) by declaring it an acceptable rate of false positives. It sucks for those boys, no question.
If a boy passes the wrist test (ie unfused plates), that doesn't mean he's definitely under 17. A large majority of 19 year olds would pass, and over half of 20 year olds would still pass.
Nigeria had half the players fail. Think about what that means not only in terms of the prevalence of age cheating but also in terms of how many years they're lying about. We're not talking about kids who missed eligibility by a few months.
This is infuriating for both opponents also for Nigerian boys who actually are under 17 but don't get that international experience because they're squeezed out by age cheaters and are constantly under suspicion.
