The latest news about ex-Nigerian defender Taribo West has shocked the European soccer over the last few hours because according to the former Partizan Belgrade president, Zarko Zecevic, the ex-Inter Milan defender is 12 years older than he claims to be.
West joined the Serbian team Partizan in 2002 as a 28-year old defender, but according to Zecevic he already was 40 years old.
“He joined us saying he was 28. We only later found out he was 40, but he was still playing well, so I don’t regret having him on the team,”’ said Zecevic.
The worst part about the story is that Taribo West was part of the 1996 Nigerian Olympic team that won the Gold Medal over Brazil in the finals. According to those numbers, West was a 34-years old defender playing as 22 years old. Considering the soccer in the Olympics only allows three players over 23 years old, Nigeria would have, in fact, cheated if the report is right.
Former Inter Milan coach Gigi Simoni, who coached West in Italy says it’s impossible for a player to have removed 12 years from his actual age. He mentioned that most of the allegations that are seen in Africa are about stories of players changing their age, only by one or two years of difference.
For years, there have been lots of rumors about players such as Jay Jay Okocha, Obafemi Martins and Nwanko Kanu to be older than they say, but none of those rumors were proven.
In 2010, one of the coaches in Nigeria told the Guardian the falsification of the players’ ages was actually affecting Nigeria as they couldn’t compete with other teams.
“What happened in Angola (African Cup) is a confirmation of what has been happening in the past where most of our players falsified their age during competitions. Most of the players are beyond the age they professed, and this made it impossible for them to withstand the pace of teams like Zambia and Benin.”
Around the soccer world, there have been always doubts about the African players’ age, but those numbers are actually so hard to get considering all the shady movements inside the African football federations.
However, in 2009 the under-17 World Cup held in Nigeria came up with a system to determinate the real age of the players, using wrist magnetic resonance scan. Nigeria had to take out 15 players from their team before the tournament, but FIFA didn’t hold any other sanctions.
“Our boys are old; we are paying the price for age cheating”, mentioned Ken Anugweje, a former doctor of the Nigeria in an interview to a UK newspaper.
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