BY JUDE OPARA,  Abuja
As part of efforts to ensure that the national U-17 team, the Golden Eaglets is free of every trace of age falsification and excel at the forthcoming FIFA U-17 championship taking place in Chile in October, the Nigeria Football Federation last week decided to carry out a mandatory Magnetic resonate Imaging (MRI) test on all the players already in camp.

A reliable source at the federation who pleaded anonymity told Sports Vanguard in Abuja that the decision may not be unconnected to the poor outing of the team at the African version of the tournament which was staged in Niger earlier in the year.

The Emmanuel Amuneke tutored side against all expectations only managed to pick one of the continental tickets to the world cup after the team lost out on the trophy zone. The result had caused a lot of criticism but our source argued that the team did well to qualify for the world cup because the late MRI test forced many first team players out of the championship.

“The NFF is being proactive this time ahead of the world cup and I think that is the right step to take because unknown to many people, before the last African championship in Niger, the MRI test caught up with most of the players who were in camp and that forced Amuneke to do a fire brigade approach to recruit more player for that championship.

“So this time, what the NFF wants to achieve is after this test which was conducted last Friday, by today or tomorrow the result will be out so any player who fails will be excused so as to make it easier for the coaches to coach only the right players who will qualify for the global championship later in the year.”

According to him, in the next three months when the world body, FIFA will conduct the mandatory MRI test for all the teams coming for the championship, the Nigerian side will not again be caught napping because most of the players will surely pass the test after passing the internal one just three months earlier.