India’s star defender Sandesh Jhingan appreciated Reliance Foundation Young Champs, FC Goa, Bengaluru FC, Dempo SC, FC Madras and the Mizoram Football Association, who have come together to combat age-fraud by participating in the inaugural Stay Your Age U-15 football tournament, that took place between September 12 and 18 at the Reliance Corporate Park (RCP) in Navi Mumbai.

Jhingan recounted personal experiences to highlight the negative impact that playing against overage footballers has on youth players. He termed it to be damaging to their confidence since it stems self-doubt at a critical stage of their overall footballing development.

Advertisement

“The age fraud thing has been an elephant in the room for so many years. During my younger days, in the U-15 and the U-17 times, we always knew there was someone who was older but playing in our age group. I have many times felt that I was not good enough, because that boy was stronger, faster, and more mature than me, but all of that was only because he was older than me,” Jhingan said.

He added, “At that age, when you are that young, even a difference of two years makes a massive difference in terms of the quality that you produce on the pitch. Luckily, I kept going and believing in myself. It needs to be stopped. It’s so sad that it still happens. It’s not just in football, but in all sports, all across the world. I think this needs to stop big time. I am really happy that all the clubs and the Reliance Foundation are coming together to solve this problem.”

The Stay Your Age Cup 2024 saw players from six teams, RFYC, FC Goa, Bengaluru FC, Dempo SC, FC Madras, and Mizoram Football Association (MFA) go through a rigorous document verification process, with all teams getting access to player documents for a smoother and fairer tournament.

The teams competed in five matches each in a league system format. In the final, RFYC defeated Bengaluru FC to maintain a 100 percent record in the league with five wins in as many matches and clinch the inaugural title.