Young basketball players are being submitted to a new registration system with those guilty of age fraud facing severe punishment, a top official of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) said yesterday.

"We have received strong reactions from coaches and youth teams since the CBA announced a Notice of Registration for the national youth basketball players a week ago. The notice focuses on the prevailing age fraud in the field of basketball nationwide," said Zhang Xiong, director of the CBA's training and scientific research department.

"Age fraud is the cancer of the development of our youth teams. We will start a war against the age fraud as we do against doping," he added.

A player of 20 could alter his birth certification and even his ID card in order to register for a U-18 competition. Some even change their names to get a valid registration.

The notice ordered youth basketball players to present proof of age produced by the local government, a permanent residence permit, an ID card and half-length photos for registration.

The CBA has also introduced new bone age detection machines, which could reduce the error under 1.5 years for more accurate age.

Any further age fraud will mean serious penalties with players being banned and teams being fined up to 10,000 yuan (US$1,271). Coaches will face potential four-year bans if their teams have three or more players lying about their age and teams will be banned from all competitions for one year, the notice announced.

"I'm sorry to say that some of our past results from international youth games were not real as we had some over-aged players in the squads. But from now on, we can promise to have a real U-18 or U-20 national team to compete in internationals," Zhang vowed.

(Xinhua News Agency November 15, 2006)