AIFF to probe Gourav Mukhi age fraud case
NEWDELHI: The All India Football Federation (AIFF) has said that it will probe the discrepancy in the age of Jamshedpur FC’S Gourav Mukhi, who was termed as the ‘youngest’ player to score in the Indian Super League (ISL) after finding the net against Bengaluru FC on Sunday at the age of 16.
However, media reports on Tuesday revealed that Mukhi had been found guilty of age fraud in the U-15 nationals in 2015 and was subsequently sanctioned by the federation.
Admitting to its goof-up in registering Mukhi as a 16-year-old this year, the AIFF said in a statement, “Jamshedpur FC player Gourav Mukhi who had earlier given a declaration that his DOB was 04/05/1999 has now submitted documents to the CRS system referring that his DOB is 04/05/2002.
“The Centralised Registration System (CRS) which registers in-detailed information of every single player for AIFF was not implemented for the National Championships and the State Associations in 2015, but later. The discrepancy in the DOBS will be referred to the relevant committee for further appropriate action.”
In an interaction with news agency PTI, AIFF general secretary Kushal Das later added after the goof-up came into the light, “The discrepancy is regarding his passport which shows that he is 2002 born and a statement he issued in 2015 which stated that he is 1999 born.”
Mukhi was one of the two players from Jamshedpur reserve side, alongside Mobashir Rahman, to be promoted to the senior side ahead of the current ISL 2018-19 season.
He was part of the Jamshedpur side that won the sub-junior nationals in 2015 and was later stripped of the title after being found guilty of age fraud. At the time, Mukhi had signed a statement clarifying that he had been born in 1999.