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‘Running with the U-20s always left me dizzy’ - Ex-Hearts of Oak player Bobby Short admits to age cheating | Pulse Ghana

Mandela Anuvabe

Former Accra Hearts of Oak player Joe Tagoe has revealed how difficult it was training with a younger age group after he reduced his age to sign for an Egyptian youth club.

Bobby Short, as he’s popularly known, admitted to falsifying his age when he signed up for the youth team in North Africa.

He disclosed that he lowered his age from about 34 or 35 to 19 in 2017 to get a berth on an Egyptian under-19 squad, attributing his choice to poverty and an unjust system.

Tagoe said this in an interview with ATV.

<blockquote>I was home and received a call from Francis Martey about an offer for an under-19 player. Looking at my height, I said okay. At that time, I was about 34 or 35 years old. Poverty can make you do such things, and the system isn’t fair to us.</blockquote>

<blockquote>I would have died if I hadn’t taken care of myself. I trained with both the senior team and U-20s, but the running with the U-20s always left me dizzy.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Many players like me face similar situations.</blockquote>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Ex Hearts of Oak midfielder Joe Tagoe on age cheating: &quot;I was home and received a call from Francis Martey about an offer for an under-19 team in Egypt.” “Looking at my height, I said okay. At that time, I was about 34 or 35 years old. Poverty can make you do such things, and… <a href="https://t.co/f6d6Y7P3gh">pic.twitter.com/f6d6Y7P3gh</a>&mdash; Fancy Di Maria (@FancyDiMaria_) <a href="https://twitter.com/FancyDiMaria_/status/1861468056523776414?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 26, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Many players and teams have been either fined or banned over the years for age fraud, which is against FIFA’s regulations.

FIFA banned Nigeria's young national teams in 1989 for using players who were too old to compete in FIFA-sponsored youth competitions. Three players who competed in the 1988 Olympics had different birth dates than the ones they used to compete in earlier competitions. In addition to the two-year suspension, Nigeria lost its bid to host the FIFA World Youth Championship in 1991.

To curb such instances, FIFA mandated the use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for the FIFA U-17 World Cup in 2009.

‘Running with the U-20s always left me dizzy’ - Ex-Hearts of Oak player Bobby Short admits to age-cheating

Former Accra Hearts of Oak player Joe Tagoe has revealed how difficult it was training with a younger age group after he reduced his age to sign for an Egyptian youth club.

‘Running with the U-20s always left me dizzy’ - Ex-Hearts of Oak player Bobby Short admits to age cheating

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