Ghana have been banned from competing in the next two editions of the FIFA U17 Women’s African Qualifiers and fined $100,000 for age cheating.
The ban comes after a Moroccan protest that Black Maidens' Nancy Amoh and Rasheeda Shahadu falsified their birthdate information and are above U17.
The Ghana Football Association (GFA) was given the chance to defend themselves against the said claims by providing the CAF Disciplinary Board with a written response but they did not provide a statement.
Ghana will miss out on the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup for the first time ever after savagely losing a ticket to the India 2022 tournament to Morocco on Saturday.
The Black Maidens went into the tie with a 2-0 advantage from the 1st leg played at the Accra Sports stadium but failed to hold on the lead.
Ahead of the second leg in Rabat, the Moroccans raised questions over the ages of some of Ghana’s players.
A report by Graphic Sports indicated that a technical meeting was held before the first-leg encounter, where the North Africans complained about the eligibility of some Ghanaian players.
The report said the Moroccans affirmed their point by claiming they had documents to prove five Ghanaian players were overaged.
But despite the Maidens’ management agreeing to withdraw those players, the report suggested the Moroccans still threatened to take the matter to FIFA.
The report added that investigations were underway to ascertain how some players could have had different dates of birth on different documents.
This, the report said, was because some of the accused players “previously played against Moroccan sides in international friendlies, or even travelled to the North African country for which their biodata had been captured.”