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CAF medical officer Dr Thulani Ngwenya has clarified a number of issues relating to the disqualification of four teams from the on-going Cosafa qualifiers for Total Under-17 Afcon, Morocco 2021.
Botswana, Comoros Islands, Eswatini and Zimbabwe were all excluded from the competition after one or more players failed a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) eligibility assessment on their arrival in host city Nelson Mandela Bay.
Ngwenya, who is also the Safa chief medical officer, has explained why the tests are conducted and how teams were advised to conduct tests prior to their departure under the strict guidance of Caf.
He revealed that the four teams that were disqualified either did not follow this crucial step or didn’t have the Caf approved medical expert overseeing their process and would have uncovered the issues that led to their exit from the competition prior to departure from their own country had they done so.
“MRI is a Fifa-approved imaging used to determine eligibility to play in the Under-17 age group,” Ngwenya explained.
“The images are taken on the non-dominant wrist, which is usually the left hand. The image takes about nine ‘slices’ of the growth plate.
“There are different stages of grading the growth plate, from 1 to 6. Grade 6 is the last stage where the growth plate is completely fused.
“For the purpose of Under-17 tournaments, everyone who is a Grade 6 is therefore deemed ineligible to participate in this age group category. Caf introduced this method to make our sport fair and (create) a level playing field.”
Ngwenya quickly pointed out that a Grade 6 result does not mean a player is ‘over-age’.
“This is an eligibility assessment, not an age determination assessment,” he said.
There have also been questions as to why the MRI tests are conducted on boys only, and not in girls’ competitions.
“Girls have a natural situation of a menstrual cycle that really affects the development of their bones and directly affects their bone density,” he explained.
Ngwenya insisted that the issues around the Cosafa qualifiers for the Total Under-17 Afcon, Morocco 2021 could have been avoided if the affected associations had followed the recommended guidelines as set out by Caf.
“Caf released a circular requesting all federations to do the MRI in their own countries (before departure). All federations could submit the request and Caf would send an expert to that country to oversee the process.
“Some countries did exactly that, but all the countries that failed the eligibility test didn’t adhere to the circular as prescribed by Caf.”
He further revealed that there is a set process to conducting the test that Caf specifically requests, which is why they want their trained medical personnel on site.
“There is a particular protocol that needs to be followed when doing this scan so that it gives you perfect images and that can only be conducted by Caf medical experts that were workshopped by Caf,” he said. – Cosafa
Online Reporter