South African Premier League champions the Orlando Pirates have suspended their entire youth development program to investigate possible age cheating.
Pirates, a former African club champion, say the age cheating ''appears to be of a magnitude that calls for an immediate and extensive investigation'' having identified cases in an initial probe.
Players pretending to be younger to qualify for age-group tournaments has been a recurring problem for African football, and was the subject of a dispute this month in the opening match of Asia's Under-19 championship, where Saudi Arabia accused Syria of having overage players.
Among other recent cases, Somalia was last month expelled from qualifying for the 2013 African Under-17 championship. Niger was disqualified from the finals of the same tournament in 2009 for fielding a 22-year-old.
