Young basketball players are being submitted to a new
registration system with those guilty of age fraud facing severe
punishment, a top official of the Chinese Basketball Association
(CBA) said yesterday.
"We have received strong reactions from coaches and youth teams
since the CBA announced a Notice of Registration for the national
youth basketball players a week ago. The notice focuses on the
prevailing age fraud in the field of basketball nationwide," said
Zhang Xiong, director of the CBA's training and scientific research
department.
"Age fraud is the cancer of the development of our youth teams.
We will start a war against the age fraud as we do against doping,"
he added.
A player of 20 could alter?his birth certification and
even?his ID card in order to register for a U-18 competition.
Some even change their names to get a valid registration.
The notice ordered youth basketball players to present proof of
age produced by the local government, a permanent residence permit,
an ID card and half-length photos for registration.
The CBA has also introduced new bone age detection machines,
which could reduce the error under 1.5 years for more accurate
age.
Any further age fraud will mean serious penalties with players
being banned and teams being fined up to 10,000 yuan (US$1,271).
Coaches will face potential four-year bans if their teams have
three or more players lying about their age and teams will be
banned from all competitions for one year, the notice
announced.
"I'm sorry to say that some of our past results from
international youth games were not real as we had some over-aged
players in the squads. But from now on, we can promise to have a
real U-18 or U-20 national team to compete in internationals,"
Zhang vowed.
(Xinhua News Agency November 15, 2006)
