Footballers' ages to be re-verified

The Tournament Committee of the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) yesterday decided to re-verify the ages of footballers before the start of the final round of the National U-18 Football Championship after the game's governing body received some verbal complaints from almost all of the eight zones which hosted the preliminary-round matches.

"We will verify the ages of footballers again by using doctors and experts before the start of the eight-team final round which is expected to get underway from April 11 as we have received some verbal allegations that some teams fielded over-age players in the preliminary round," BFF vice president and tournament committee chairman Mohiuddin Ahmed Mohi said after a meeting yesterday.

“The participating teams will get the opportunity to replace players if any over-age players are found in the retests," added Mohi. "Our coaches initially checked the ages of all the footballers across the country on the basis of their birth certificates, but there may have been loopholes this time. We will try to verify the ages of footballers from the next edition strongly."