Twelve players disqualified in 2024 at the AIFF Junior League, 87 players disqualified out of a possible 126 last year in 2023 at the Under-14 Subroto Cup, and the list goes on. From local leagues to the biggest stages, age falsification has continued to distort and erode the essence of not just football but sport in general: competition. It wouldn’t be breaking news to state that age fraud has plagued Indian football.
The practice has been an open secret at all levels, hindering the growth of genuine talent for decades. But in a country as cricket-crazed as India — a country where the glitz, glam, and superstardom are mostly reserved only for those who wield the willow and leather, while others are expected to toil away on their own in the shadows till they achieve significant success on their own — it only worsens the already diminutive view of Indian football that exists within our nation and around the world as well. The Lack of Verification Protocols To understand this, we can examine one major instance.
Let’s discuss Gaurav Mukhi. Once deemed the ‘youngest goalscorer in the history of the Indian League at just 16 years old,’ Gaurav Mukhi of Jamshedpur FC caught the eye of the footballing world as a whole, not merely for his feat but also when it was revealed that he had falsified his age. But soon enough, international online media latched onto the story, and Indian football made all the headlines for the wrong reasons, as many quoted Mukhi’s actual age ra.