Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia believes that the Ghana Card will put an end to age-cheating in football following Black Maidens’ ban from competing in U-17 Women’s World Cup qualifiers due to age fraud.
“Fake birth certificates were a big problem for our country and it made it very difficult for people to trust our documents at embassies and everywhere because people will just go and have fake birth certificates,” Bawumia said, as quoted by Ghanaweb.
“In fact, when we went to the birth and death registry, we found three different databases and we had to harmonize the databases.
“Once you have a unique identity you’ll not have fake birth certificates as there will be no football age versus normal age. That business will come to an end.”
“Recently you would know that our women’s team was banned for presenting some overaged players. Hopefully, now we are going to strictly require that they bring their Ghana card before they are going to be registered to play,” he added.
According to the National Identification Authority, over 14 million Ghanaians have received the Ghana Card so far.
The Ghana Football Association (GFA) in June said the Ghana Card has become mandatory for player registration in the 2022/23 football season.
The GFA stated that the Ghana card is “the only proof of identity for registration; renewals, transfers and new registrations.”
The new season will start in September.
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