Ghana's Vice President Dr Bawumia Has Revealed How Age Cheating in Football Can Be Reduced Drastically

• Vice President of Ghana has revealed how government intends on reducing age-cheating in football
• Ghana has suffered a two year ban in women's U17 football after two players were reported to be faked their birth certificates
• Several players of Ghana's U17 men's team were also disqualified before the WAFU Zone B U17 Cup of Nations for age-cheating

Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, the Vice President of Ghana, has revealed that age-cheating in football can be reduced if sportsmen and women undergo the 'Ghana card' registration.

The West African nation in the last few years has issued a new identification card popularly known as the Ghana card.

According to the Vice President, should sportsmen and women get the Ghana card, it will help reduce the problem of age-cheating.

“Fake birth certificates were a big problem for our country and it made it very difficult for people to trust our documents at embassies and everywhere because people will just go and have fake birth certificates," Bawumia said, as quoted by Ghanaweb.

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"In fact when we went to the birth and death registry, we found three different databases and we had to harmonize the databases.

"Once you have a unique identity you'll not have fake birth certificates as there will be no football age versus normal age. That business will come to an end.”

“Recently you would know that our women's team was banned for presenting some overaged players. Hopefully now we are going to strictly require that they bring their Ghana card before they are going to be registered to play," he added.

Ghana has suffered bans in football due to age-cheating and just early this year, the Black Starlets had seven players disqualified due after failing an MRI scan.

And the Black Maidens were also banned for two years for fielding over-age players.

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Black Maidens banned from two FIFA competitions

Earlier, Sports Brief reported that the national U17 female team of Ghana, the Black Maidens, have been banned from playing in the next two editions of the FIFA U17 Women's World Cup qualifiers.

The Ghana Football Association has also been fined an amount of $100,000 after the team fielded two over-age players in the qualifiers against Morocco.

CAF found Ghana guilty of age cheating after Nancy Amoh and Rasheeda Shahadu were reported by the Moroccan Football Federation for falsifying their birth certificates.