How old is Martin Bakole Really?

I was recently training a Nigerian lad who told me it was his birthday. I asked him how old he was and his response was to ask if I wanted his real age or school age? His dad quickly intervened shouting in Nigerian at him Turned out the boy was 13 but claiming he was 9 and only in year 5 at school

 

26 is that he says he is? That would surprise me I would of guessed around 31/32. 26 is not out of the question but if he is that age, the paper round back home must of been a tough one!

 

I heard he went to school with Luis Ortiz, Bakole was the year above.

 

He’s simply not 26. Honestly lying about age in sport should be a jail-able offence, it’s fraud.

 

He looks at least 31 or 32 to me.

No way of ever knowing his real age in any case, he may not even know. You can do bone density tests.

Lieing about your age is a big advantage in football when starting out your career. If you lie and say you are alot younger, you can really stand out and get a lot of hype. Players such as Freddy Adu did this to maximum. Turned out when he was playing against men in mid tier european leagues he wasnt even good enough to get into their teams.

 

A colleague of mine coaches football at a premiership academy. Players with dodgy papers is literally an epidemic now for most clubs

 

Crystal Palace are suffering from this with Benteke. He has gone off completely and is no longer able to score. His official age is 29 but he looks and plays like a 38 year old. Just too old to play premiership football and be effective.

Premiership clubs are able to do bone density tests. Many will just stay away from players from the countries where age fraud is rife.

 

If he's 26, it must be in dog years.

 

I think there's a pretty good case that Adu was the age he claimed. His failure to match expectations was probably more his career being badly handled by people more interested in money than development, poor early stage coaching in the US, and possibly never being that great to begin with - plain over-hyped . There have been plenty of players who've had promising debut seasons and then disappeared, without any age-cheating being a factor.

 

If Martin Bakole is 26, Billy Nelson orders slim fit Medium shirts from ASOS.

 

21 or 28 he's Obafemi Martins! Another bloke who was scoring hat tricks in the champions league at "17" and finished at the top level at "27". Mad how they get away with it.

 

Kanu must have been about 52 when he finished up at Pompey but tbf he was so silky and never relied on pure athleticism so he got away with it.

 

Bakole is 27

 

Why in earth is @CutThroatFade booted??