48 NPFL players reportedly sent home from Flying Eagles camp over Age fraud
As many as 48 Nigeria Professional Football League players have been reportedly caught in age fraud and sent home from the Flying Eagles camp on Monday.
68 players from the Nigeria Professional Football League were invited to the camp as Nigeria prepare for the WAFU qualifiers but sadly more than half have been reportedly sent home.
According to reports, the players sent home had correct ages on their international passports, but further checks especially on the Transfer Matching System revealed different age documentation.
The report confirms that only 20 players out of the 68 Nigeria Professional Football players scaled through the checks
“It is very unfortunate that many of the good players we identified in the NPFL teams could not meet up the criteria. It is very funny that in this technological age, our players still take certain things for granted.
“You will not believe that a player that played in the Continent for a club, came here with a passport that has different age from what he has on the TMS.
“It is very embarrassing. I think our clubs should start paying more attention to the documents that players are filling out and submitting to them. This is very important because it will embarrass the country one of these days.
“Look at the player that was sent out of training this morning (pointing at a player from one of the NPFL teams from the South East that was sent out of the training that morning), he is a good player that has the quality to help the team, but we discovered this morning that the age he has on his passport is entirely different from what he used in filling his document in the NPFL.
“It is very bad and goes a long way to affect the system. Where Coaches can not use the good players because of one negligence or the other ” the source which is part of the team concluded.
Meanwhile, the final team list of 30 players will be revealed after the two friendly matches to be played on Tuesday against City FC and one other team.
The team will leave for Niamey on Thursday where they are expected to battle Ghana and Burkina Faso for a place in the African Youth Championship staged later in the year. Nigeria is in WAFU Group B.
