Man Utd and Man City academy players at centre of age-fraud claims
Manchester United and Manchester City are facing questions over a potential age-fraud scandal involving some of their foreign-born academy players.
Evidence has emerged casting doubt on the stated ages of six footballers to have moved to the UK in the last several years – three of whom have played for England at youth level – and raising the prospect some may even be adults. It includes photographs indicating each of the six had played in much older year groups back in their homelands than the age they purportedly would have been at the time.
Telegraph Sport is not naming the players involved because the photographs and other records do not prove their stated ages are false and because some or all may still be vulnerable minors. There is also no suggestion United or City have knowingly enabled age-cheating at their academies. But the evidence – of which both clubs are aware – does raise questions about whether they could do more to ensure it and other related offences are not occurring.
Problem throws up safeguarding issue
Parents whose own sons have attended United or City’s academies told Telegraph Sport concerns had been raised with staff about the players under suspicion before the latest evidence emerged. Some of those parents also said the matter had previously been reported to the safeguarding teams at the Football Association and Premier League. The players subsequently continued to represent United and City and remained eligible to represent England on the basis of their stated ages. At least half have been educated in the UK in the corresponding year groups.
All this raises questions about whether enough has been done to verify the ages of the six players. Telegraph Sport has been told none of them have undergone scientific testing that can provide an indication of how old a child is or whether someone is over 18.
Under the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, such tests can be carried out on those “subject to immigration control” upon entry into the UK. According to guidance published by the Home Office in November, that includes those who “do not have sufficient evidence to demonstrate their age, and either their claim to be children is doubted or they claim to be adults but are suspected to be children”. Such testing has long been carried out on young footballers in countries with a history of age fraud and the parents who spoke to Telegraph Sport said it should be used on all foreign-born players recruited by Premier League academies.
Any age-cheating scandal involving young players at English clubs would also raise the prospect of children having been “trafficked” into the UK. Under Fifa rules, teams are all but banned from signing children who have moved countries unless their parents or legal guardians have relocated for non-footballing reasons. The falsification of a young player’s age would raise questions about the motive behind such a course of action.
United, City, the FA, Premier League and Home Office declined to comment when asked if they had taken any action, or would do so, in light of the evidence to emerge about six of the clubs’ players. United said in a statement: “We are committed to operating all aspects of our academy within the rules and regulations laid down by our governing bodies, including in the recruitment and registration of players. We take our responsibilities for player wellbeing and safeguarding very seriously. Indeed, we take pride in the reputation we have developed for considering the participants in our programmes as first and foremost children, rather than players. Our recruitment process is focused firmly on future potential rather than current performance or physical development.”
Telegraph Sport has been told City are confident they have followed all the legal and regulatory obligations set by statutory agencies. One source said it was not unusual for the best and biggest young players to compete several years above their own age group and that it would not be acceptable to age-test children based on geographic origin, as well as impractical to test all academy players. Another source said the FA and Premier League relied on a Home Office determination in respect of an academy player’s age when reviewing registration applications. The source added that it was not appropriate for the FA or the league to require academy players that had been subject to immigration controls to undergo any additional age assessment, as to do so would undermine the Home Office’s determination.
The six players had already been in the UK for a number of years before the evidence to have emerged came to light. However, the Home Office can take action against anyone suspected of committing historic immigration fraud. Telegraph Sport has been told that, in some countries, it is possible to bribe corrupt officials into providing false identity documents. The Home Office would not comment on whether it would look into the photographs and records relating to the players in question.
Agent blames smear campaign
A contract with a Premier League club would be the ultimate prize for anyone looking to commit age fraud given the riches on offer for the few youngsters deemed good enough to play for one. Being placed into a year group with significantly younger players would afford an older child or adult an unfair advantage over his supposed peers when trying to win a first professional deal.
Three of the six aforementioned players have links to a football agent who agreed to answer questions about the evidence to have emerged. FA rules prevent agents signing anyone under the age of 16 and he said he had not entered into any such arrangement with the players. He also said none of the trio had been brought to the UK under false pretences.
Asked about photographs indicating they had played football in their homeland in a much older year group than the age they purportedly would have been at the time, he suggested they had been genuinely playing at that level at an early age. However, he twice got two of the players’ purported ages wrong when stating how old they were at the time the photographs were taken and how old they would turn on their next birthday.
He argued that age-testing was not “100 per cent” accurate and claimed there had been a smear campaign against the players by rival agents they had refused to sign for. “There is a kind of mafia happening behind the players,” he said. “The truth will always succeed. They will not stop those boys. They have the gift from God. No one will destroy their career. No one.”
Parents lament impact on British talent
Speak to the parents of Premier League academy players about suspected age fraud involving foreign-born youngsters and they will share some astonishing stories.
They will talk about the England youth star who once got his date of birth mixed up when quizzed about it by his team-mates and who even turned up on his supposed birthday wearing a badge with the wrong age. They will mention the teenager who led his club to an under-11 tournament triumph before deleting his Instagram account and vanishing from public view. They will bring up the players using different surnames to those they went by in their homelands, as well as the supposed 10-year-olds whom local primary schools refused to enrol, and the players forced to sit out overseas trips because they did not have valid passports.
Previously, such tales would have been easy to dismiss as gossip and hearsay, and certainly not enough evidence to indicate age cheating. But some of these stories have been thrown into a new light following the emergence of photographs and other records that cast doubt on the stated birthdates of six academy players signed by Manchester United and Manchester City. Parents of those players’ current and former peers believe the evidence vindicates concerns they say had been raised with staff at the clubs, as well as with the safeguarding teams at the Football Association and Premier League.
‘It’s the biggest farce ever’
Those concerns stem from what they say are years watching their own sons struggle to compete against players they deemed to be significantly bigger, stronger and quicker than UK-born youngsters in the same age groups. The evidence to have emerged has raised the prospect that some of those players may even be adults.
“There’s a massive safeguarding issue,” said one parent, who claimed their son had faced two of the players in question and come up against others they suspected of being “maybe four, five years” older. They said: “Not only is it pretty unforgiving, it’s also potentially dangerous as well. You’re getting hit hard with a tackle or a challenge by a kid that you’re giving a foot away to. Sometimes, you’re giving away a foot in height and two or three stone in weight. If one of these guys hits you with a challenge, you know about it.” Drawing a comparison with the ongoing furore over transgender women being allowed to play in the female game, they added: “It’s just wrong. It’s the biggest farce ever.”
Another parent said they had been told that one of the six players had “attacked another boy and physically three times hit him in the face” and that if any did turn out to be over 18, it would be “putting a hell of a lot of lives of young boys at risk by letting them travel abroad, travel on buses, planes, in hotel rooms”. They added that some of them would have had access to “young girls” at secondary school. A third parent said: “When they come over here, they get put in the school system at that age. If the lad’s 16 in a class of 11-12 year-olds, lads at 16 have got sexual urges etc.. with girls. Where does that take it then? You’re going into whole new realms of things that could happen.”
Another parent brought up football’s child sex abuse scandal, warning that any “men” pretending to be under 18 “could be predators”. They also raised the prospect of such players having been trafficked from their homelands, pointing out that this had happened to current United forward Amad Diallo. Days after Diallo’s 2021 move from Atalanta, the Ivory Coast player was fined €48,000 (just over £42,000) by the Italian Football Federation, which ruled he had used false documents to enter Italy when he was just 12. Under Fifa rules, teams are all but banned from signing children who have moved countries unless their parents or legal guardians have relocated for non-footballing reasons. The falsification of a young player’s age would raise questions about the motive behind such a course of action. There is no suggestion Diallo lied about his own age.
A tiny percentage of academy players will make it as professionals. Parents who spoke to Telegraph Sport warned age-cheating would simply make it even harder for UK-born academy players to break through. “My son won’t kick a football now,” one lamented. “He doesn’t want to play any more. Doesn’t want to play for his school. Doesn’t want anything to do with it.” Another said of their own son: “He was always small and slight and he got sick of playing against these lads all the time, and not getting picked, or whatever. And he just said, ‘I don’t want to do it any more’.” Not wanting to crush their children’s dreams, some parents have tried to stick it out, but one said: “It’s been a problem for a while now and it doesn’t seem like the club are going to do anything. So, how much longer is anybody prepared to sacrifice leaving their boy there?”
United and City will be well aware of the potential implications of an age-fraud scandal involving their academy players and there is no suggestion they have knowingly enabled such cheating to take place. But they do face questions about whether they could do more to ensure such cheating and other related offences are not occurring, particularly in light of the evidence to have emerged. As does the FA, given at least three of the players in question have played for England at youth level.
All of the parents spoken to by Telegraph Sport said foreign-born academy players should be subjected to age-testing that can indicate a child’s age or whether someone is over 18. Such tests have long been carried out on young footballers in countries with a history of age fraud. One parent said: “A club like Manchester United or Manchester City, whoever it might be, things like this are easily accessible and affordable for them. Just get it done.”
Another said there were fears within the game that such testing would be deemed “racist” because many foreign-born players at Premier League academies had come to the UK from Africa. But they added: “If you are not born in this country, regardless of black, white, whatever you are, you should be tested to see if your birthdate marries up with your certificates.” They said they bore no ill will to players or their parents if they had committed age fraud. “You’d do anything for your kids,” they said. “So, if you were in one of those countries where you had nothing and this was your opportunity of a get-out, you’d do it. I don’t blame the families or the kids.”
‘Academies want athletes over technicians’
They claimed part of the problem was that clubs in England and the FA had begun prioritising “athletes” at the expense of “technicians”. “They’re going for just big, aesthetic looks of athletes that they think they can change into footballers, which, generally, they can’t,” they said. “Spain produce footballers. England just want athletes to bombard their way through. Because they’ve got to be seen to be competing for all the money they put in.”
United, City, the FA, Premier League and Home Office declined to comment when asked if they had taken any action, or would do so, in light of the evidence to emerge about six of the clubs’ players. United said in a statement: “We are committed to operating all aspects of our academy within the rules and regulations laid down by our governing bodies, including in the recruitment and registration of players. We take our responsibilities for player wellbeing and safeguarding very seriously. Indeed, we take pride in the reputation we have developed for considering the participants in our programmes as first and foremost children, rather than players. Our recruitment process is focused firmly on future potential rather than current performance or physical development.”
Telegraph Sport has been told City are confident they have followed all the legal and regulatory obligations set by statutory agencies. One source said it was not unusual for the best and biggest young players to compete several years above their own age group and that it would be unacceptable to age-test children based on geographic origin, as well as impractical to test all academy players. Another said the FA and Premier League relied on a Home Office determination in respect of an academy player’s age when reviewing registration applications. The source added that it was inappropriate for the FA or the league to require academy players that had been subject to immigration controls to undergo any additional age assessment, as to do so would undermine the Home Office’s determination.
None of the parents who spoke to Telegraph Sport wanted to be named in order to protect their children. One said: “There is a general fear of speaking to anyone at the clubs for fear of your son being released. It becomes a taboo subject that can’t be discussed. Parents aren’t daft. They’ve seen the levels of age fraud abroad, but who’s listening?”
Even those whose boys had given up on a football career insisted on remaining anonymous. One said that they had recently told a fellow parent: “It’s too late for our sons now. They’ve had their chance and it’s been soured, been ruined.” The other whose son had “packed up now” said they hoped speaking out, even anonymously, would make an impact. “It might not help for us,” they said. “But, maybe, further down the line, it might help for other kids.”
What is age fraud?
The use of a false age, often supported by forged documents, for personal gain. The fraud is easier to perpetuate in countries with poor or corrupt record-keeping practices. In sport, age fraud is most commonly carried out by athletes pretending to be younger than they are because of the size, strength and speed advantages adults and older children have over their younger counterparts. It can lead to such athletes being selected for – and winning – major competitions at youth level, as well as being handed potentially-lucrative professional contracts. All at the expense of those who really are that age. There are also potential safety and safeguarding implications, most acutely when it comes to adults pretending to be children.
What are the methods to combat it?
Other than proving documentation has been falsified, the only way is scientific testing that can give some indication of how old someone is. Under the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, such tests can be carried out on those “subject to immigration control”. According to guidance published by the Home Office in November, that includes those who “do not have sufficient evidence to demonstrate their age, and either their claim to be children is doubted or they claim to be adults but are suspected to be children”. Testing can involve an X-ray of the third molar (wisdom tooth) or the bones of the hand and wrist, and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) of the knee bones or collarbone. MRI testing has long been used on young footballers in countries where age fraud is not uncommon and was previously deployed by Fifa at Under-17 tournaments. It stopped conducting such testing after deeming the results were not 100 per cent accurate and therefore open to legal challenge.
Examples of alleged age fraud in football
In 1989, Nigeria’s national youth teams were banned by Fifa for fielding overage players in its tournaments, including the 1988 Olympics. The country was also stripped of the 1991 World Youth Championship.
In his 1998 biography of Sir Alf Ramsey, Dave Bowler alleged England’s World Cup-winning manager shifted his date of birth from 1920 to 1922. Bowler claimed Ramsey feared that, come the end of the Second World War, he would be considered too old to be offered a professional playing contract.
In 2006, Carlos Alberto de Oliveira Júnior, who won the 2003 World Youth Championship with Brazil, was banned for 360 days after it emerged he had been born exactly five years’ earlier than his stated birthdate of Jan 24, 1983.
Last year, the Cameroonian Football Federation (Fecafoot) suspended 62 players for allegedly falsifying their identities and ages. The previous year, 32 players failed MRI age testing in the build-up to the country’s qualification games for the 2023 Africa Under-17 Cup of Nations. The tests had been ordered by the president of Fecafoot, Samuel Eto’o, the former Barcelona and Chelsea striker.
As recently as December, Borussia Dortmund were plunged into an age-cheating scandal after a man purporting to be the registered father of Youssoufa Moukoko claimed to have lied about the striker’s date of birth. Moukoko has broken various age-related records in Germany. Dortmund said in a statement: “In the case of Youssoufa Moukoko, the biological parents and the date of birth are derived from official identification documents and birth certificates issued by a German authority. These documents are still valid today and are the basis for playing authorisations and permits for clubs, regardless of whether they are domestic or foreign, and of course also for association teams such as the German Under-21 national team.
“Please also note that both the player and the biological parents identified in the above-mentioned documents have declared to us and, in the case of the parents, even to third parties through affidavits in the context of legal proceedings, that the information contained in the aforementioned official documents is correct.”
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