lying about your age

An absolute gem of a story hidden away in today's Rumour Mill. One of Italian football's bright young hopes is the 20 year old prodigy Obafemi Martins, a young Nigerian striker who has scored some magnificent goals for Internazionale over the last couple of years and looks like storming world football. Except that evidence has come to light that Martins, who graduated from the Inter youth set up three years ago, was not born, as he informed his club, in 1984, but rather in 1978 - making him not 20 years of age, but a rather less sprightly 27; obliterating his market value and opening up his club to various legal ramifications, too. How fantastic! Assuming that, in a couple of years or so, Martins would have either secured a big money move to another elite club or a massive contract designed to secure his services through his 'peak years' in Milan, you have to wonder what he would have done when, "aged" 24 or 25, his pace suddenly began to wane. A really fascinating piece of duplicity.