Age-cheating: Black Maidens World Cup dream in danger

Ghana’s U-17 women’s national team, the Black Maidens could miss out on the World Cup in India after five players were accused of being overaged.

This emerges after Ghana defeated Morocco at the Accra Sports Stadium over the weekend in the qualifiers.

The Maidens took a giant step towards qualifying for the World Cup after beating Morocco 2-0 in the first leg of the final round of the qualifiers.

Goals from Stella Nyamekye and Nancy Amoh saw Maidens record a win over the North African side.

However, ahead of the second leg in Rabat, the Moroccans have raised questions over the ages of some of Ghana’s players.

A report by Graphic Sports indicates that a technical meeting was held before the first-leg encounter, where the North Africans complained about the eligibility of some Ghanaian players.

The report said the Moroccans affirmed their point by claiming they had documents to prove five Ghanaian players were overaged.

But despite the Maidens’ management agreeing to withdraw those players, the report suggests the Moroccans still threatened to take the matter to FIFA.

The report added that investigations are underway to ascertain how some players could have had different dates of birth on different documents.

This, the report said, was because some of the accused players “previously played against Moroccan sides in international friendlies, or even traveled to the North African country for which their biodata had been captured.”

The development puts Ghana’s qualification to the U-17 Women’s World Cup in jeopardy, especially if Morocco decides to push for the Maiden’s disqualification over the use of unqualified players.