Eq. Guinea women's soccer team thrown out of Olympics again

AP , Monday 11 Apr 2016

FIFA

FIFA disqualified the Equatorial Guinea women's soccer team from the 2020 Olympics on Monday for fielding a player with ''forged or falsified documents,'' the latest sanction for a country with a history of selecting ineligible players from other nations.

The player in question this time, Brazil-born midfielder Camila Maria do Carmo Nobre de Oliveira, was ineligible to play for Equatorial Guinea because she was using two passports with different information during the qualifying competition for this year's Olympics, FIFA said. She also has two birth certificates that showed different information for her parents' nationality.

Equatorial Guinea failed to qualify for the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro.

FIFA said the team was disqualified from the qualifying competition for the 2020 Games in Tokyo and the country's soccer federation was fined 40,000 Swiss francs ($42,000). FIFA also suspended Camila for 10 matches - from when she becomes eligible to play - and fined her 2,000 Swiss francs ($2,100).

''The (FIFA) disciplinary committee held the Equatorial Guinea Football Association liable for the use of forged or falsified documents,'' FIFA said.

FIFA was investigating the eligibility of several other players on Equatorial Guinea's team.

Equatorial Guinea's women's team was also disqualified from the 2012 London Olympics for fielding an ineligible player. In 2011, FIFA suspended striker Jade Boho Sayo for two months and threw her out of the women's World Cup and the team out of the Olympics the following year. The Equatorial Guinea women's team is a two-time African champion, last winning the title in 2012.

The men's team has also been caught fielding ineligible players. It was disqualified from last year's African Cup of Nations but was reinstated - and went on to reach the semifinals - after offering to host the tournament as a last-minute replacement for Morocco.

Equatorial Guinea is a small, oil-rich country on the west coast of Africa and has been accused of trying to buy soccer success by enticing foreign players.

The men's team was stripped of a victory in World Cup qualifying in 2013 when none of its starting lineup was born in Equatorial Guinea.

FIFA allows players to represent a country if they were born there, or they have lived in the country continuously for a period of time, or a parent or grandparent was born there.

Search Keywords:
Short link: