01 June 2004	Tuesday	12 Rabi-us-Saani 1425

KARACHI, May 31: Fata Under-16 soccer team manager on Monday admitted his side had over-age players and charged officials with bias, saying they were allowing favourites to field over-age players at the ongoing national championship.

"All the teams have over-age players including mine. But they (officials responsible for age scrutiny) are letting teams who have influence to field over-age players. "The officials discarded our five players because they were over-age.

They were again trying to discard two of our players before match against NWFP. Had they done that we would have lost our team with seven of our boys out," Fata manager Raees Khan said.

The manager claimed since he had no influence over the concerned officials, they were giving his side a raw deal by discriminating with others. "As we are not that influential as others are, scrutiny officials are treating us badly. I agree our team do have over-age players, but the others have too.

"Neither there was a doctor present during the age scrutiny not there is any system. Officials should treat everybody equally. But they are allowing over-age players of some teams while stopping others like us," he alleged.

Raees said Fata youths did not play soccer at a tender age of below 16. "In our area kids always start playing football after 16 years of age and not before that." Fata official's remarked after match commissioner Tariq Lutfi stopped Naheed Khan and Irshad from entering the field before the game against NWFP.

The game started 20 minutes late because of confusion. However, the pair were later allowed by the official to play. Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) director technical Col Mujahidullah Khan later explained the two players were stopped because of a mix-up.

"We thought Fata were trying to include those who already have been discarded after age scrutiny and the names of the players were not matching with those we have. But later it was revealed that the players had exchanged their jersey numbers," PFF official said. Mujahid had already admitted that since elbow X-ray test could only determine the age of the players, "few participating teams might have over-age players."