Recently, reports came out by a German paper that uncovered a birth certificate for Youssoufa Moukoko that comes from the year 2000. This would make his age 22, and for someone in the wonderkids scene like me, this would be earth shattering news.
You may not even be aware of this news due to how recently it was broken, but these reports could have a massive butterfly effect on the world of football. I’ll explain later, but for now, the timeline of events.
Yesterday afternoon, the Daily Mail made an article and released it on their twitter account about a report from an unnamed German publisher and Austrian Publisher Laola1 that sees a birth certificate from his own adopted father that states he was born in the year 2000, and his real name is Youssouffa Mohamadou.
The biggest evidence is that these reports came from Moukoko’s adopted father, something that makes no sense in and of itself, as why would someone’s adopted father sabotage their career like this? The other piece of evidence is girlfriends he had when he was younger that were older than him.
However, the DFB has released a statement in which it points to the authenticity of the documents saying he was born in 2004. Perhaps then, a troublemaker emailed the German and Austrian publishers as Moukoko’s adoptive father and scribbled out some birth certificates, or perhaps the publishers didn’t receive anything from his father in the first place. It’s hard to tell. Only time will tell Moukoko’s actual age. Another piece of circumstantial evidence is that 21 of the 30 players on the Cameroon U17 team tested to be overaged and 11 of the 21 replacements also turned out to be overaged. Moukoko was born in Cameroon.
Whether he’s 18 or 22, this controversy has had Chelsea and Newcastle, both interested in Moukoko, step back in their interest, which could lead to an empty path for Barca to sign him for free in the summer. If he’s 18, of course.
With all that said, we have to give this situation time to develop and let the heads in Germany and at FIFA do their thing. I’m Jim James, and until next time.