Nigeria have dropped 15 players from their Under-17 World Cup squad, following tests to determine the ages of team members. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/africa/8223125.stm
Most likely, they are just bone scans, used to determine the growth and development of the bones. Problems arise with this though as some children obviously develop later than others and so it is possible that an 18 year old could have a bone age of 16 and thus avoid detection, but it's unlikely that this gap would be any less than a two year delay. If a supposed 17 year old comes out with a much larger age though then clearly you know there is something to investigate.
This is actually a very serious issue that FIFA need to look at. There have been rumours for many years about players lying about their age to play in these youth tournaments. The problem is, it's difficult to address the issue as many of the countries involved will see the problem as a political one, and what can be done besides attempting to get these countries to be tougher with regards to passports?
We have to realize some players may have been born not knowing when they were born and their parents may not have an official date for their day of birth. They may have receive a birth certificate only when they neeeded the document for some official reason. It's the reality in many countries. It may have nothing to do with players trying to pass off as being younger than they actually are.
Shouldn't this put a damper on previous under-17 World Cup victories, or at least receive more glances from the suspicious? Personally I don't care, Nigeria has shown to be competitive on all levels of tournament play (World Cup, Olympics). Odd though that FIFA decides to call for these tests now. It would be interesting if the same had occurred with Ghana though, they didn't qualify this year so the team was most likely not eligible for the test.
There's a difference between "competitive" and competitive.... Nigeria has won THREE U-17 World Championships since 1985, yet they only have four total victories in all World Cups combined. There's no other country in the world with such a huge gap between youth success and senior success. That said, Nigeria isn't alone here. There is rampant age cheating all over Africa, and a number of other teams have had their own scandals. It's not just in soccer, as there have been a number of under-age scandals with African track and field stars. Either way, I don't think it's a huge deal. Nobody really cares who wins these youth titles. We watch them to get to watch who the next national team stars will be. Nobody gives a crap that Nigeria wins a lot of youth titles.
To be fair with Africa and Nigeria, the confederation was only granted 1-2 slots in World Cups prior to the 1994 edition, limiting the chances of qualification. In Nigeria's case this may very well be influential in there being a wide disparity between youth and senior success Other than that they are almost consistenly strong within their own continental tournament and have fared quite well at the under-23 Olympic level, finishing runners-up in 2008. They also hold the championship winning records at the African continental youth tournaments for both under-17 & under-20. These are all examples which lead me to regard them as competitive, aside from the controversy and lack of medals at the WC level.
15 players were dropped, but not all due to MRI scan. Some didn't pass the MRI test, the rest didn't pass the 'football grade'.
They were also cheated out of a spot in 1982. And a Cup has yet to be held in Africa, as Asian, Europen, South American, and North American teams have all had the luxury of home field advantage.