Asian youth soccer tournament not so youthful

Two crooks spoiling the broth...

Everyone remembers Danny Almonte, right? The kid who blew away the opposition at the Little League World Series in 2001, only for the world to discover a few weeks later that, well, he wasn't that little.

Now, it's the Asian Under-16s football tournament's turn to take the Almonte spotlight, with the news that North Korea, Iraq and Tajikistan have been fined and booted from the competition for doing exactly that: Pulling an Almonte.

According to the Reuters report, the players were caught during the qualifying rounds last year, as the Asian Football Confederation used MRI scans to determine the ages of players [if only the Dominican Republic would do this for baseball, so we could finally find out how fucking old Julio Franco is].

Reuters also reported that five other countries -- Bhutan, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Kyrgyzstan and Macau -- were also fined the $4,000 for the same offense, although none of them qualified.

I'm just impressed that they can pull this tournament off. I also never knew Iraq had an U-16s football team, let alone a footballing infrastructure. Perhaps Dubya should point to this fact next time anyone asks about cutting and running.