File: SSFA president, Francis Amin/Photo/Elshiek Chol/Eye Radio.

South Sudan’s football governing body says it will investigate how some overage players were included in the CECAFA Under-17 squad that led to the disqualification of the team from this year’s Zonal qualifier tournament in Rwanda.

South Sudan U-17 was due to face the defending champions Uganda in the opening game of this year’s tournament On Saturday.

On Friday, CECAFA said it had disqualified the team after four of South Sudan’s U-17 players failed to pass Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) tests conducted by the tournament organizers and CAF medical team before the tournament.

MRIs have been used by FIFA since 2003 to ensure players are eligible, by scanning the bones in their wrists.

But the South Sudan Football Association appears to defend the mess-up, saying “none of the staff knew that the players were over-aged because their birth certificates indicated that they are seventeen or below.”

“The MRI results stated otherwise which led to the disqualification of our whole squad, SSFA has and will always uphold strong integrity values and follow all rules and regulations that’s why we shall investigate why the above happened,” SSFA said in a statement Saturday.

SSFA stated that it is strongly committed to integrity and full sportsmanship by following the rules and regulations of all competitions.