Prince Pambo doubts CAF's medical officer

A member of the Ghana Football Association medical team Dr Prince Pambo says there is no need to panic over CAF’s decision to ban the country from participating in the 2015 African U17 Championship.

He remains confident that decision will be reversed after the Ghana Football Association appealed the ban.


Ghana is alleged to have fielded over-aged players in their final round qualifier against Cameroon which they won both legs.


Hearts of Lions midfielder Isaac Twum was cross-examined by a CAF medical officer and said to be overage.


But the Ghana Football Association has hotly disputed that.


Pambo who was in the thick of selection process in the lead up to the 2013 Ghana U17 Group, told JOY Sports the work of CAF’s medical expert cannot be trusted.


“We don’t need to get that feeling that when CAF claims their experts say this, then it is the Gospel truth. I can tell you on authority that, he CAF medical committee does not have a radiologist who experts in interpreting the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). We wouldn’t just take what they say,” he noted.

Pambo also questioned the timeliness of the MRI test and argued a disparity in readings was normal provided the initial test were conducted in MAY and CAF sought verification by re-doing the test in October.


“We don’t know what they are seeing? The issue here is that these “CAF experts” are reading an MRI that was conducted in October, we presented our MRIs in March and now a problem arises, you come to do a MRI in October to disqualify us,” he added.


Pambo called on the CAF to ensure fairness by ensuring all teams that participated in the U17 qualifiers are retested.


“Get all the players who participated in the qualifiers be it Ghana, Nigeria or whatever let them do the MRI at this time for all of them and compare to the MRI done in March and tell if they will be same?


Cameroon filed a protest against seven of the players in the Black Starlets after losing 2-1 in the first leg match of the third round.


Caf’s Medical Committee submitted findings that showed that Ghana were guilty, but the West Africans have said that they will protest the decision.