Young players hoping to be part of Nigeria’s cadet national team for next year’s African U-17 Cup of Nations qualifiers will have to scale some of the most compelling and stringent conditions ever placed by Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) in order to become eligible for the qualifies and eventual competition.
Megasportsarena.com gatheerd that, while MRI scans have been used to ascertain ages of players for continental and global age-grad competitions since 2013, this year’s rules appear to be stiffer than ever, even as the current set of Eaglets’ players, being handled by Fatai Folorunsho Amoo (aka Arsenal) get the first stage of tests this weekend.
Feelers from the Eaglets’ camp in Abuja indicated that about 60 players have been lined up to get the tests, with a first batch of 30 set to commence the exercise, which will this time out spread across three stages, in order to provide authentic results for age detectors.
Consequently, unlike previous MRI tests, only players with results showing grades between categories one and three would be declared eligible for the qualifiers, after the continent’s soccer governing body, Confederation of African Football (CAF) decided onb new regulations in determining those qualified to play.
CAF further warned that a single failed age test by any player chosen in the final squad list of any competing country will henceforth cause outright disqualification of that team; thereby making Amoo and his Eaglets’ very cautious, as they go about selecting players for next month’s U17 AFCON in Benin Republic, where they will play in Group B against Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana.
An Eaglets’ official, who also disclosed that the team will likely begin playing build-up friendly matches on Friday, affirmed: “We are going to begin taking the players for MRI tests starting this weekend, after which they will start playing build-up matches.
“We will use the matches to fully assess the selected players before making the final list for the qualifiers in Benin Republic.”
This comes few days after Amoo disclosed that he had put an end to open screening and he will now commence the process of team building, even as he admitted there is still a huge number of 60 players in camp and he has to prune the number to 30 within the short time available.
Amoo told Brila FM: “The shape of the team is not really there yet, we are doing everything humanly possible to make sure we get there. Right now, we have sixty players in the camp but we will trim them to thirty then to twenty which will be the last set of players that will be in the camp for the Championship.”
