Jacqueline Shipanga, the Namibia coach, had accused Ghana of age-cheating after the Black Princesses’ 10-0 aggregate scoreline over two legs against her country. This was in the qualifying for the Fifa U-20 Women’s World Cup.
Shipanga’s allegation particularly fingered Florence Dadson, one of Ghana’s lead forwards but the Ghana FA says her comments are disparaging. In a statement to CAF seen by SuperSport.com, Ghana FA says its management committee of the Under-20 female team “have read with disgust accusations of age-cheating levelled against the team by the coach of Namibia’s Under-20 team, Jacqueline Shipanga.”
It goes on: “The committee and for that matter, the Ghana Football Association (GFA) takes serious exception to these allegations which are intended to discredit the efforts being put in developing and promoting women’s football and impune on the integrity of GFA.
Furthermore, the Ghana FA says its committee “finds the behaviour and utterance of Ms Shipanga as unguarded and very irresponsible which has impuned on the integrity of Ghana”.
CAF are yet to respond to the claims. Age-cheating is a touchy issue the world over as several nations believe they are hard done by competitors who do the wrong thing and get an unfair advantage. — Supersport
