PETER Pan is a fictional character created by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie. He is a free-spirited and mischievous young boy who never grows up.
In Asian football, many players have never grown old as they still represent their countries in age-group tournaments.
Although the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and their affiliates have come up with measures to stop age manipulation, it is still prevalent in the continent.
Sadly, the actions of some irresponsible countries are killing the progress of Asian football.
The AFC Under-23 qualifiers start next week, and there are already allegations of teams naming overage players for the tournament.
Paulo Gali is, no doubt, the ultimate Peter Pan of Asian football, as the Timor Leste player has either grown "older" or became "younger" in the last few years.
Singapore's reported that Gali, a player who was previously accused of being overaged, has been registered for the Asian qualifiers.
Gali was registered as a 22-year-old by Timor Leste for the 2018 AFF Cup and a year later, he played for his country in the AFF Under-15 Championship as a 14-year-old.
The puzzling incident took another twist when the protests from Myanmar and Singapore over Gali's age fraud at the Under-15 tournament were thrown out of the window by the Asean Football Federation (AFF) after evaluating his documents and medical reports.
Two years on, Gali has emerged again for his country for the Under-23 qualifiers, and Singapore, who are in the same group with Timor Leste, are furious. They have brought up the issue to the AFC for further action.
Many teams had also claimed that Timor Leste fielded overage players for the Sea Games over the years, but all remained as allegations.
In 2019, it was alleged that Gali had two identification cards to qualify him for youth tournaments.
Myanmar and Laos are the other two Southeast Asian countries who had age manipulation allegations against them.
In the 2012 AFC Under-22 qualifiers, Myanmar allegedly fielded overage players. The players in question were captain Kyaw Zayar Win, Kyi Lin and Kaung Si Thu, who scored a brace in the 2-1 win over Malaysia, which earned Myanmar a spot in the tournament proper.
According to their respective club websites, Zayar Win and Kyi Lin were 24 then while Kaung was a year older but the FA of Malaysia did not pursue the matter after checking verified documents, including citizenship security cards from the Myanmar government, and other particulars, including players' identification numbers provided by the AFC.
In 2019, former national youth coach P. Maniam alleged that Laos were among many teams that had falsified documents of players to qualify them for the AFF Under-15 tournament. However, these allegations were not proven.
Next week, Malaysia will play Laos, Mongolia and Thailand in the AFC Under-23 qualifiers in Ulaanbaatar.
And it will be interesting to see whether some of Malaysia's opponents field overage players to gain some advantage.
In Southeast Asia, age fraud has become a norm in age-group competitions, and the AFF should be taken to task for not doing enough to eradicate cheaters from the game.
However, age fraud is not exclusively an Asean football phenomenon. It is a global age old phenomenon. It is prevalent in some Asian and African countries where birth registration is not always taken very seriously.
For instance, Nigeria are the only country to have won the Under-17 World Cup five times. However, the Super Eagles have never advanced past the Fifa World Cup last 16.
AFC have taken stern action in the past. Sixteen players were banned by the Asian body in 2000, and eight more were banned in the 2010 AFC U-16 Championship for age manipulation.
However, it does not only happen in football. Cases have also been reported in Asian hockey, cricket and athletics over the years.
For years, football experts tried everything they could think of, looking at growing bones, white blood cells, chromosomes, checking out various molecules in the blood and so on to verify people's ages. Nothing worked accurately.
The MRI, introduced by Fifa in 2009, is the most effective method but is expensive, and many countries cannot afford to use it comprehensively.
Do not be fooled by age fraud. The best way is to educate countries not to cheat.
It is reprehensible, and the football bodies should ban countries who use overage players in youth tournaments.
By barring their affiliates, together with the players, it will deter the others.
Peter Pan should just remain a fictional character and not be used as a guiding light to cheat in sports.
Ajitpal Singh is the Sports Editor of NST