How old is Freddy Adu? :: Official Thread :: Part I

His documents have been checked. What says he is not 14?? That his mother has raised him with some class and he can speak to the press unlike the professional idiots we are used to seeing on SportsCenter?? And what can happen to DC United/MLS if he is over 14?? The only trouble is USSF which has allowed him to play in age based tournaments. And given the checking they have done, I don't see how thay can be blamed anyway.

 

And really, how much older could he be? Even if he was 3 years older than they say he is he still could've played in the U-17 Cup, so the point is probably moot.

If Freddy knew he was older than he is, there's no point to him lying about it. THERE ARE NO BENEFITS FOR HIM SAYING HE IS YOUNGER THAN HE ANYMORE. The sooner he turns 18, the sooner he goes to Europe. It's that simple.

 

He's 14.

And how do you figure he has a big mouth? The kids seems very poised and quite humble. His mother seems to have raised him correctly.

 

More words of unparalleled wisdom.

But at Sormun least finally found something he knows a thing or two about... "big mouth" indeed.

 

Hardly. I don't think he should have said anything either way. Say nice things about Ray, be diplomatic and don't comment on whether he should or shouldn't be back next year.

He's 14. And unless you've got hard evidence to the contrary I don't want to hear you suggest otherwise.

 

What lawsuit are we "risc"ing? SI has already checked as best as anyone can hope and like other people have said, if Freddy was 16 he would have to wait 2 fewer years before getting the big money in Europe.

What else can Freddy say? What question was he asked, "Do you want Ray back next year?" Every player on DC United would have answered the same way. Freddy said that he had no control over the matter, what else do you want, him to say "no comment"? If he said that, it would be seen as a death knell for Ray.

 

With all due respect, what greater qualifications do you have to evaluate professional soccer coaches than Freddy has?

Freddy might have been merely diplomatic in his response to the Hudson question, but the quotes don't read that way to me. I'm taking the considered evaluation of this 14 year old over the collective wisdom of the Fire Hudson squad. Ngis Nosduh Won!

 

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/inside_game/grant_wahl/news/2003/02/27/wahl_soccer/

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_online/news/2003/03/03/freddy/

sormun - That big mouth, that's an illusion. It's just the glare from his smile.

 

Yeah, I saw him. I also saw him on Letterman and interviewed on local news. I read the transcripts from his signing in NYC last week, and the conclusion I've come to is "hmm, this kid seems like he was raised right. Kudos to his mother. It must've been tough for them, a single mom taking her two kids and all their belongings to a foreign country, working two jobs to make ends meet. It's nice to see that sometimes the American Dream can come true."

You think Freddy's a big mouth? Please. The kid knows he's good, and there's nothing wrong with that. He seems to acknowledge that he's pretty lucky to be where he is today. Given the praise he's getting from all over the world, he could be a completely spoiled conceited brat, and if that's what you saw you have more problems than just hating Convey.

Are you jealous that you didn't make it as a soccer player when you were a kid?

THE KID IS FOURTEEN!!!!

Why the F-*-*-K would he lie about it? As others have pointed out, if he was 16 or 17 lying about his age would hurt him. The sooner he's 18, the sooner he can play in Europe.

 

He's got documented proof that he's 14. Where's your documented proof that he isn't?

Put up OR SHUT UP.

And it seems to me that you're either stupid,, retarded or an ass. If you're stupid or retarded I'll lay off. It's not nice to make fun of mentally handicapped people. If you're just an ass, I'll continue to try to get Knave or revelation to move your crap about Adu to the Recycle Bin, where it belongs.

 

I definitely have my doubts as well. I'm not sure a birth certificate made in 1996 is documented proof.

 

My question is why at the age of 6 or 7 would they lie about his birth year?? Was he in Ghana's national U8 program?? Was Sampson scouting him to get him to play for the US in the 98 WC?? What was his mother up to if she lied then??

 

Tell me then, why would he pretend to be younger than he actually is? Why would he limit his playing options to MLS only for the next 3.5 years if he's already 16 or 17?

It makes no sense for him and his mother to lie about his age.

 

Well, if he was 16 or 17, would he be generating as much interest as he is? Probably, but I think part of the hype is that he was dominating World Class players 3 years older than himself.

Is it possible that she doesn't know when his birthday was?

 

You're probably right. I mean who ever heard of a 14 year old child prodigy who could perform a task, athletic or otherwise, at a skill level beyond his or her age.

You're right again. I mean my mom forgets when my sisters and I were born all the time. Doesn't yours? Why would Freddy's mom be any different?

 

This does happen, but what I'm saying is that a large part of the hype surrounding him is that he is dominating players who are 3 years older than his claimed age. Would he have a million dollar Nike Contract if he was 17 rather than 14? Would he have a 6 year deal with MLS? Maybe, Maybe not. There is reason to lie there.

 

So you're saying a kid who never played organized soccer in Ghana, was never a part of their national team program, who had never heard of MLS, who had never had contact with the USSF had his age falsified when he was 8 just in case he turned out to be a sickeningly good soccer player to better capitalize on his professional and endorsement career six years down the road?

Dude, if Emelia Adu was so frigging prophetic, it would have been a lot easier for her to pick the goddamned lottery numbers.

Dissecting this whole thing makes me understand how Galileo felt.

 

Are you saying that the birth certificate created in 1996, when he would've been, what, 10 or 11 instead of 7 or 8, was created because somehow everyone in Ghana knew the kid was going to become an international soccer star and get a $1,000,000.00 endorsement deal from Nike when he was a 17 year old pretending to be 14?

Are you saying that his mother and the Ghanaian authorities conspired to lie about his actual birthdate in the first year of the existence of Major League Soccer because they knew that eventually the Adu's would win the green card lottery, move to the USA and cash in with a 6 year deal with the league?

I just want to make sure I undertand how the hell you think they managed to accomplish this.

 

Knave, I think we need to change the Board tagline to: "All Adu, All the Time!" (sarcasm).

Sormun (and others), there has been a tremendous amount of stuff already written about Adu and his age. Knave's repost of the Grant Wahl's article is pretty darn good. There are also a bunch of other threads on BS that cover this issue to-death. I've had further exchanges with Wahl on this, seeking more details.

1. Adu has an encentive to claim he is OLDER, not younger. It would mean he could legally work sooner, that he could turn pro sooner (remember those European work laws for youth players). If he was going to lie, all the evidence argues he'd do it in the opposite direction. His invitation to Bradenton was even delayed b/c of his age--if he'd been a year older he'd have been down there sooner.

2. USSF has looked into this pretty comprehensively. People forget how serious FIFA is about bogus documentation. Remember how Mexico was banned from a WORLD CUP from using overage youth players in a youth tournament (it wasn't even a full adult competition). A ban from the World Cup! FIFA wouldn't allow Bobby Convey to compete in the first match of the Concacaf U20 qualifier in Charleston, USA b/c he didn't bring his PASSPORT/Birth certificate. He's already qualified for numerous full national, U17, U20, Olympic matches, its in the USA. But FIFA says "no can play" b/c the documents weren't exactly as they prescribed. Folks, FIFA is serious about cracking down and penalizing national sides that use overage players or don't have the documents in order. This isn't just some handslap. And FIFA is fine with Adu's documentation.

3. A number of African nationals have posted on Big Soccer than Hospital admission records (the earliest available document for Freddy) as the basis for later birth certificates is pretty common.

4. Besides Knave's (and Wahl's) demand of: show some proof that he's older than 14, what is the encentive for him to lie that he's younger than he is? Remember, when his mom applied, they had no encentive to lie about age. Don't speculate that being younger increased the chance of being accepted--his family got her on a lottery. And several African posters talked about going through the same process when they were 16--being younger doesn't increase your change of being accepted. With exception of the little league baseball players, the examples I'm all aware of (especially with regard to soccer) are all of players claiming to be OLDER than they are (so they can work sooner, so they can turn pro sooner, so they can enter a country without their parents sooner).

5. He's quick and fast, but Freddy Adu isn't that different in terms of physical development from the other 14-year old Americans I know of who are decent or good athletes. Where he's different is his sense/behavior/verbal skills and his ability with the game.

Please, lets stop all the nonsense about the kid must be older than 14. Until someone shows some evidence to the contrary (and speculation or comments that anyone that good must be older ain't evidence), than this is a dead horse.

 

It's not so much a falsifying the age so the kid can kick ass in soccer issue as much as it is getting over to the US issue.

For three summers I've worked for a Washington area public school system registering kids for English as a Second Language programs, and we do get a fair amount of kids from West Africa, particularly Ghana. They need to win an INS lottery to come here. Many people enter the lottery and win, but for whatever reason they don't want to or can't go (this is according to some of the Ghanans themselves). So, they sell their winning "ticket" to someone who does want to go, and that person must go as the person who won, hence, they switch birth certificates or have a new one made up. Obviously not all Ghanans who come to the US do it via this method (in fact, the vast majority don't), and I'm not saying that this is how the Adus did it. However, it is plausible that they could have known a family of three, a Mom and two sons, who won, and bought their tickets and other documents and come over.

We only ever saw 3-5 of these cases during the three summers I worked there (kids whose documents said they were 11 but looked 16, had facial hair like they were 16, and gave us 16-year-old looks, etc.), so it's not like it's an overly common occurence.

Additionally, to address the question of now why would Freddy say he's 14 if he's really 16 so he can go play in Europe sooner. Would he really want to admit that the past couple years have been a lie? That he essentially defrauded the Potomac team he played for? And especially defrauded the INS? Then he gets deported...

To say that because Freddy and his Mom say that he's 14 so therefore he must be 14 is a little gullible I think. Could he be 14? Yes, no doubt, he definitely could. Could he be 16 or 17? Again, no doubt, he definitely could. That said, he's now playing in a league where age really doesn't matter, and where, in fact, he saying he's 14 and sticking to it puts him at a disadvantage since he can't go to Europe as soon as he could otherwise.

 

I am going to venture an assumption that Coach Hudson is behind this... could he have prompted Adu to say: "Hey... Freddy... put in a good word for me... my contract is up for renewal."? Otherwise, why would Adu make such a ridiculous statement... I mean... who wants Hudson besides the man himself? When can we be finished with this guy? Suggestion for interim coach: French Fry vendor on RFK 200 level conncession stand!

On another point: ALL ADU ALL THE TIME? Is this the future of DC UNITED? Sorry... I'm a bit tired already of this high-school dropout already...any word on Etch?

IntheNet

 

Sure, it could happen. But considering that multiple groups with multiple reasons have investigated it - including SI hiring people over there - doesn't it seem less and less likely that they are one of these few who have done that?

SI LOVES to break open things like this. It's not that Freddy and his Mom say it so I believe it. It's that lots of people have tried to prove it wrong and have come up empty. So all that's left is speculation. And tha's incredibly weak ground.