Syria’s Youth Soccer Teams Were the Pride of the Nation — But Dozens of Players Were Too Old To Compete

It was midway through the second half when Syria’s young forward, Mohammed al-Hamwi, pounced on a header across goal and knocked it past the Italian keeper, putting his country on the path to one of its most dramatic international soccer victories. 

Syria’s 2-1 triumph over Italy in the group stages of the 2005 FIFA World Youth Championship electrified the nation, and crowned a run of eye-catching wins by the youth team over the previous decade and a half.  

But Hamwi should have never been on the field. He was 21 at the time, even though the tournament was only open to players under 20.

Hamwi was able to enter thanks to official documents that misrepresented his date of birth, OCCRP and its partners have found. Nor was he alone. From 1989 to 2005, at least 40 over-age Syrian players were able to compete in youth tournaments thanks to falsified passports. 

These players made decisive contributions to some of Syria’s biggest soccer wins, including a run in the 1991 World Youth Championship where they helped knock out an England squad featuring Premier League star Andy Cole. They also won the under-20 Asian Cup in 1994. 

They entered these tournaments by using “special mission” passports, issued by the Foreign Ministry, which contained false dates of birth. Syria’s soccer authority, the Syrian Arab Football Federation, then submitted these passports to FIFA, even though it is far more common for countries to use regular passports. 

Reporters from OCCRP and its partner SIRAJ, along with a Swiss reporter, obtained birth certificates for 40 players through a source whose identity is being withheld for security reasons. Reporters selected the players for their prominent roles both on the field and later as analysts, officials, coaches, and other positions in the sports world. 

The reporters compared the dates on the birth certificates with those listed in the special mission passports and on FIFA’s website. For three additional players, they found real ages acknowledged in sources such as social media posts, TV interviews, a coaching certificate, and a standard passport. 

The differences in the submitted and real ages ranged from one to six years. The biggest gap was for Mazen Koussa, the goalkeeper for the 1991 squad: According to the “special mission” passport submitted to FIFA — which gave his name as “Malek” — he was born in 1971, but on social media and in an interview with a Syrian TV station he has said that he was actually born in 1965. 

The reason for the discrepancy in the first names was not clear, and Koussa did not respond to requests for comment.

Walid al-Mehdi, who headed the committee that oversees Syria’s national team from 2005 to 2011, told SIRAJ that the practice of faking ages was so widespread that the number of players with genuine ages on some youth squads “did not exceed the number of fingers on one hand.”

He insisted that he had “categorically” rejected the practice during his tenure, and had once urged the head of the football federation to “appear in public and tear up the mission’s passports.” 

The federation persisted in the practice to “demonstrate achievements to the political authorities,” he said. 

Mustafa Shakoush, a goalkeeper with Syria’s youth team during the 2005 tournament, acknowledged in an interview with SIRAJ that the federation had changed his date of birth by a year, from 1985 to 1986, in his special mission passport. 

Shakoush, now a football coach at a sports academy in Mersin, a city in south-central Turkey, said the forgery was carried out with “high-level support from multiple state institutions.”

Syria’s Foreign Ministry, football federation, and the General Sports Federation did not respond to requests for comment. A FIFA spokesperson told OCCRP that after checking their data, they “found no records of a disciplinary issue or complaint being submitted to FIFA on the topic.”

A String of Victories

Syria’s victories struck a chord with many in a country that loves soccer but rarely gets to see its teams thrive in international tournaments. The national team has never qualified for a World Cup. 

After the youth team took the 1994 Asian Cup in a 2-1 win over Japan, the legendary Syrian sportscaster Adnan Bouzo published a book called “The Victory of the Youth.” He compared the day of their win to “the nation’s wedding day” and recalled how Damascus airport “turned into a human flood” as crowds flocked to greet the champions. 

President Hafez al-Assad, who had ruled Syria since seizing power in a 1971 coup, proclaimed that the victory had “brought great joy to our people.” 

Marwan Mouna, who played on the squad that won the cup and whose age was understated by three years, remembered how the team was invited to meet Assad and showered with gifts after their victory. 

“They wanted to build a team that could win a championship. The sports leadership wanted to show off in front of government officials and win recognition from the president — and that's what happened,” said Mouna, who fled to Turkey after Syria’s conflict broke out in 2011. 

The team’s performance in the 2005 World Youth Championship in the Netherlands was also lauded. The comments section of a YouTube clip of one match brims with praise and nostalgia: “One of the Syrian national team’s best matches and one of the most beautiful of theirs I’ve seen,” one says. “Where did this magnificent team disappear?” asks another.

In a 2021 interview with the Syrian outlet Radio Rozana, the 2005 squad’s goalkeeper, Adnan al-Hafez, reminisced with the host about how crowds of Syrians had gathered in coffee shops and homes to follow the games. 

When the host asked why the players who found so much success on the youth teams did not seem to excel on the men’s national team, Hafez — whose age was understated by two years, according to his birth certificate — blamed the lack of “training programs and continuous follow-up” found in other countries. Hafez did not respond to requests for comment.

Decisive Contributions 

Over the decade and a half where the ages were misstated, Syria’s “under-20” squads qualified for four FIFA youth championships, where they posted a win over Uruguay, and draws with Spain, Canada, and England. In England’s case, the draw helped knock the team out of the group stage. 

In these games, the contributions of over-age players were often decisive. In the 1991 tournament, for instance, the team’s nine goals — including four during penalties — were all scored by players whose ages had been falsified. 

After advancing from the group stage in 2005, the team lost narrowly to powerhouse Brazil in the knockout round after Hamwi, the forward who scored against Italy, bounced a shot off the crossbar. A goal in the draw against Canada was provided by striker Majid al-Haj, whose birth certificate shows his age was also understated by two years. Haj did not respond to requests for comment. 

Though this is the first time age fraud by Syria has been reported, similar cases have been uncovered in the past. In 1989, FIFA banned Nigeria from international events for two years after it was found the ages of three players in the previous year’s Olympics had been misrepresented. In 2003, Kenya’s under-17 team was dissolved after some players admitted they were over-age. 

FIFA introduced MRI tests to verify ages ahead of the “under-17” World Cup in Nigeria in 2009. After carrying out its own scans, Nigeria dropped over a dozen players from its team. 

Anas Ammo, a Syrian sports journalist and author, said that the cost of forgery wasn’t just that the youth team’s victories were tainted by cheating — it also prevented talented players from developing properly because they were stuck competing against younger opponents. 

“We’ve seen generations of Syrian soccer players buried on the youth teams,” he said. 

Prominent Roles

Some of the Syrian players whose ages were falsified went on to hold prominent roles in the sports world. 

Hatem al-Ghayeb, whose birth certificate shows he was four years older than stated on the FIFA website, went on to head Syria’s football federation after taking part in the 1991 World Youth Championship. 

Muhammad Afash, who took part in the 1989 and 1991 tournaments, had a gap of five years. According to the documents submitted to FIFA, he was born in 1971, but his birth certificate shows he was born in 1966. Afash went on to play for the Greek club Ionikos Nikeas, and has regularly said he would run for president of Syria’s football federation.

Others included Ammar Awad, who was on the 1989 and 1991 teams and later played for a club in southern France before becoming a sports pundit; and Assaf Khalifa, who played on the 1991 team and served as manager of the Syrian national team in 2020.

Ghayeb, Afash, Awad, and Khalifa did not respond to requests for comment. 

The president of Syria’s football federation during the 1989 and 1991 tournaments, Farouk Bouzo, also served as a FIFA referee and became the first Syrian to officiate a World Cup match in 1978. In 1996, he received FIFA’s “Order of Merit.” He declined to answer questions about the falsified ages.

Bassam al-Farikh, who played on the 1989 team, told SIRAJ that the special mission passports had been prepared for players without asking them. Though the players were aware their ages were misrepresented — some were even asked to shave their beards thoroughly before tournaments — officials never mentioned the fraud explicitly, he said. 

“It was enough for us to be called up to the national team,” Farikh said. “When we traveled, all our documents were ready, and we didn't do anything.”

Shakoush and Mouna, the former players now in Turkey, said they believed high-level officials had been well aware of the fraud at the time. 

“In Syria, we now have a 50-year-old governing system. Do you think this political system — from the smallest employee in the football federation to the president — doesn’t know about this fraud?” Mouna said. “Of course they know. They’re the ones who taught us about fraud, bribery, and forgery.” 

“Unfortunately,” he said, “forgery runs in our blood.”