FIFA says it is beating the problem of countries trying to cheat at international youth tournaments by fielding overage players.
FIFA development director Thierry Regenass said Wednesday that world football's governing body has shown ``a real commitment'' to tackling the issue, including scanning players' wrists to help determine their true age.
``We will see this problem reduce in the future,'' Regenass said.
Age cheating has long been suspected in Africa, whose countries' record in under-17 tournaments is traditionally better than at the World Cup.
Last year, Niger was disqualified at the African Under-17 championship after it was revealed to have fielded a player aged 22 in group-stage matches.
Regenass said the incident became ``a national scandal'' in Niger and the football federation's ruling executive had to resign.
FIFA then ordered magnetic imaging scans performed on players selected at random from the 24 nations who competed at the 2009 Under-17 World Cup in Nigeria.
Doctors can tell with 99 percent certainty that a patient is at least 17 years old if wrist bones have fully fused together.
At some competitions, up to one-third of players had seemed older than 17, FIFA chief medical officer Jiri Dvorak said
Dvorak said FIFA's reaction to suspected age cheating with fast, cheap scans was ``pretty good and it is improving.''
``Now we have cleaned up (the problem) even without legal consequences and punishment, just by prevention and education,'' Dvorak said.
FIFA accepted that some countries which do not manage a national register of births found it difficult to date players' exact age.
Regenass said FIFA helped by giving federations the means to operate a national database which would accurately track players as young as eight from their first registration with a club or training academy.
``When you are eight years old, it is difficult to claim you are four years old,'' Regenass said.
