The jubilation would not end when Mjällby AIF on Thursday could present Silas Nwankwo.
The Nigerian striker comes to Sweden with a very exciting CV …
19 goals in 35 matches for Nasarawa United made him the shared top scorer in the Nigerian league, where he was also named the league’s best player last season.
Add to that the fact that Silas Nwankwo was appointed as Odion Ighalos’ replacement in Nigeria’s AFCON squad.
All this at the age of just 18 … Or what?
For now, doubts have arisen about how old Silas Nwankwo really is.
It did not take long before people reacted to Mjällby’s presentation of the Nigerian player. Several quickly wrote that Silas Nwankwo certainly did not look like an 18-year-old kid.
A quick search of Football Manager’s huge and accurate database shows that Silas Nwankwo is 18 years old with the date of birth December 12, 2003. It’s the same information on Transfermarkt, Wikipedia and his Instagram.
So far so good, but in the previous database from Football Manager (2021), Nwankwo was born on September 9, 1996 and is thus 24 years into the game.
The same age was revealed in a tweet this summer when Nasarawa United wrote that the player was ready for the next step in his career. It writes Aftonbladet.
The Swedish newspaper further writes that an article from 2015 throws further gravel in the machinery, as a certain Silas Nwankwo should have scored the decisive goal in the West African Games.
Then Mjällby’s new acquisition would have been 11 years, if otherwise the information is correct.
On social media, people are guessing that Silas Nwankwo is anywhere from over 30 years old to the aforementioned 18 years old.
However, the sports manager in Mjällby, Hasse Larsson, is confident in his case and calls the reactions to the player purchase disrespectful.
– I do not have social media myself, but quite spontaneously I think it is very disrespectful. Some say he is 24 years old, others that he is 26, and some that he is 32. Someone has seen him party in Mallorca. It is nonsense to keep going, it sounds from Hasse Larsson to Blekinge Läns Tidling and elaborates.
– We are as confident (at his age, ed.) As we can be without giving any guarantees. He was selected for the U20 national team in Nigeria when he was 16. Why should he be selected there? They have had a body scan on him where they can see the age. There has been a lot of talk about this issue before, and therefore this is done in Nigeria, says Hasse Larsson.
Mjällby AIF will not proceed with the case or the speculation. Here, Silas Nwankwo is considered a talented 18-year-old striker.