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Cheats spoil U-16 tourney

IT seems cheating in some schools football tournaments will continue to be an embarrassment to the country.

IT seems cheating in some schools football tournaments will continue to be an embarrassment to the country.

The four-day Metropolitan Cup Under-16 tournament held in the North West town of Klerksdorp confirmed this after some participating schools were found guilty of registering players fraudulently.

The schools were Lingelihle High School of Eastern Cape and Zacheus Malaza of Mpumalanga.

They were expelled from the week-long tournament that was won by Siyahlomula, who beat Umqhele 3-2 in a penalty shootout in Saturday's final.

The two teams are from KwaZulu-Natal.

Christabell Kota, the sponsors' group empowerment and corporate affairs general manager, said they were disappointed by the behaviour of the officials from the affected schools. But Kota and the South African Schools Football Association (Sasfa) promised to work together to come up with ways to eradicate fraud in the tournament.

Bafana Bafana team manager Sipho Nkumane, who also attended the tournament, said the huge incentives in such tournaments encouraged schools to cheat "because they want to win at all costs".

Mamelodi Sundowns scout Alex "Barnes" Bapela said he was impressed with the level of football displayed.

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