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Innocent Kurira, Sports Reporter

PERHAPS now will be the opportune time for the full consideration of the use of biometrics as part of means to curb age cheating in the country.

Over the years age cheating has hampered sport development in the country.

Issues surrounding age cheating have often been swept under the carpet especially at junior competitions.

Age cheating is not only in football, it is prevalent in all sport codes.

Cases of age cheating are rampant and some individual schools as well as provinces seem to have perfected the art of age cheating. Most of the schools cheating are in Masvingo province.

Up until the embarrassing ban of the Zimbabwe Under-17 team at the ongoing Cosafa tournament on Friday, not much noise has been made towards the cure to this cancer that has affected sport in the country.

The age cheating problem is not only a Zimbabwean problem but an African problem.

Cosafa announced the disqualification of Botswana, Comoros Islands, Eswatini and Zimbabwe from its Zonal Qualifier for their Under-17 Africa Cup of Nations tournament that is expected to be hosted in 2021.

World football governing body Fifa encourages and supports participating member associations to conduct their own Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) tests in the build-up to youth tournaments in order to ensure that players are compliant with the age limit.

MRI can determine whether the growth plates at the ends of the long bones (arm and leg bones) have fused and vertical growth has stopped.

This can give a general determination of the age of children and teens. Age determination by magnetic resonance imaging of the wrist can also be done for adolescent male football players. This can be important in sports leagues where participation is grouped by age.

However, research shows MRI scanning cannot determine age and as such results from the tests cannot be conclusive.

Renowned athletics coach and sports science lecturer at the National University of Science and Technology (Nust) Bhekuzulu Khumalo recently told Chronicle Sports that biometric machines can bring a solution to the age cheating problem.

“I have always been convinced that Zimbabwe has an opportunity to combat it. The biometric machines used for voter registration during elections could be used to collect such data for every

Zimbabwean child starting from ECD level. This then would be the system to use at sports vetting, meaning one cannot change personal details against the biometric data.

“Zimbabwe uses biometric data to identify voters during elections then the gadgets lie idle in between elections. My view is that these machines can be used to gather data of all citizens of all ages. Use schools as centres for data collection. After all, teachers are trained to use these machines, as they are the ones involved in elections. This means wherever there are sports needing age screening, the same machines are used for vetting,” Khumalo said.

Biometrics have the potential to make authentication dramatically faster, easier and more secure than traditional passwords.

Biometrics are physical or behavioural human characteristics that can be used to digitally identify a person to grant access to systems, devices or data. Examples of these biometric identifiers are fingerprints, facial patterns, voice or typing cadence.
— @innocentskizoe