As much as Kalu is an absolutely useless signing, I can't see any evidence to back up the claim he's any older than 24. Made his debut in 2016. If he's in his 30's where was he hiding during his 20's considering he's played internationally and three of Europe's top divisions?
He made his debut in Europe in 2016 - but before that he was at a football academy in Nigeria. There are already cases that have been referenced in this thread of players in Nigeria and Ghana who get fake birth certificates so they are more likely to get accepted in to football academies in their country and get youth national caps, even when they're 7-8 years older - with them then hopefully impressing enough to get picked up by a European club. If you go back and look at the posts by myself and reids, age faking by footballers in those countries is commonplace.
So in reality if true he's lied and broken his contract. Isn't it possible just to tear it up and **** him off without paying a penny?
If you ignore the fact we probably don’t care as he was just another dodgy Bayat deal, then yes we probably could.
It all falls apart with the whole no evidence thing though. A player that is clearly fairly decent spends his 20's in the Nigerian leagues, yet we have no record of it? It's not the 80's, it's very hard to keep that all a secret.
Papers have been served in France alleging wrongdoing. Authorities very very rarely do that on a hunch.
He would have spent his early 20s in an academy/acadmies in Nigeria. Go back and look at my post here: https://wfcforums.com/index.php?threads/samuel-kalu.59632/page-6#post-3164939 Clubs and academies in Nigeria know this practise is going on, but don't seem to really care if it gives them a competitive edge or increased chance of selling a player. Also, you claim "it's not the 80's" but how sophisticated do you think centralised infrastructure and record keeping is in Nigeria?
It's nothing to do with their record keeping. It's about the plethora of Nigerian's that would know he's older than he is yet haven't said anything. I also don't think it would be hard to track down his career in Nigeria. If he was playing youth football for 15 years then I would suggest that would have been quite suspicious. Yes he's been a terrible signing, but baseless claims about his age are just silly, and ignore a lot about genetic differences across cultures
Very true, Im honest face to face but on apps I am starting to stretch credulity a little far perhaps!
Are they baseless? https://girondins4ever.com/breves/2...ansfert-de-samuel-kalu-aux-girondins-en-2018/
Well we don’t know, but it would be interesting to see this reported somewhere other than a fan site. The whole story has a number of promising aromas, but isn’t quite a full dish. Complicated by Kalu’s mystery six injuries that have prevented his participation beyond a couple of games. Sign he’s knocking on, laying low or simply unlucky?
The fan site took it from the indictment from the full set of charges that Mogi is accused of: https://www.rtbf.be/article/footgat...uet-federal-a-mogi-bayat-10917840?id=10917840 Interestingly Bayat is accused of doing the same for Lukebakio and the Congolese football federation (as well as gifting his brother a €55k watch as part of his deal bringing him to Watford)
As far as I can make out, these are allegations of false certificates relating to Kalu’s international experience, but not his age. However, this doesn’t preclude that age was also falsely stated. Would love to know the truth.
Yeah there's a lot of jumping to conclusions and tenuous links, but it doesn't take a detective to work out why Bayat might have wanted a falsified certificate to show that Kalu that played for the Nigerian U21 side.
Well there doesn't seem to be any mention of him at all until he suddenly pops up in AS Trencin in Slovakia as a 17 year old. And it seems he never played for any of Nigeria's underage teams despite being relatively successful at Gent and Bordeaux whilst eligible for them.
A detective is exactly what is needed and then a cosy, football themed Sunday serial about the adventures of said, football detective. Coach On The Case (ITV3) starring Ralph Little. He’s unorthodox, but he gets results!
It’s like that episode of the X-Files where some bloke pops up every sixty years to eat a few livers before disappearing again. Kalu was last seen playing for Burnley in the 1962 cup final, before vanishing.
To the tune of Metal Guru; Samuel Kalu, is it you, yeah yeah yeah Samuel Kalu, or someone new, yeah yeah yeah ...... Samuel Kalu, is it true, yeah yeah yeah, Samuel Kalu, you're 42, yeah yeah, yeah
Twitter lets you do an advanced search by date. First mention of a Samuel Kalu related to football is Dec 2015 when he signed for Trencin. There is nothing before then other than some random spam and posts related to other people with the same name. After he signed there are loads of tweets about him especially from Nigerian accounts that follow players in Europe. Is it possible that no-one knew anything about him or ever mentioned seeing this up and coming talent, given how much Nigerians tweet about football? Maybe, I guess...
He’s not the only Trencin signing from the Aminchi/GBC Academy in Jos, they have an apparent affiliation, though there isn’t much information. There is a discontinued Facebook Page for the club which references his subsequent exploits and those of others who went to Trencin. I also think you might be overestimating social media use in Nigeria at that time. It’s increased exponentially since as smartphones have become more readily available. Of course this doesn’t mean that Kalu didn’t fake his age, but unless the GBS Academy is part of the fakery, you’d have thought the club would have spotted, at 15/16 the extreme, 8-10 year gaps being suggested.
I think we shouldn't be focused on the fake age and maybe more on the fact it's not clear if he's even a real footballer
