The age of Chancel Mbemba, a former Porto player and now with Marseille, has again been the subject of discussion. It should be remembered that the center is officially 27 years old, but since he arrived in Europe, he has already been assigned four birth dates, which puts him at 27, 31, 32 or 34 years old.
“There are a lot of people who say… it’s been eleven years now… I’m just doing my job, I don’t know who knows my age better than me, my mother or my father. Still people say congratulations,” he said simply.
In 2013, FIFA confirmed the start of an investigation while Mbemba was in Belgium at Anderlecht. There, the date of birth was 1994, but the licenses issued in the Congo indicated 1988.
Moreover, Mbemba was registered by the first two clubs he represented in the Congo as having been born in 1988, but he is listed as having been born in 1991 on the Congo national team’s certificate; Anderlecht, the club he joined in 2012, registered the defender as born on August 8, 1994, and the player himself has said in some interviews that he was born in 1990. FIFA closed the investigation after a court in Kinshasa, the capital of the Congo, certified the date of birth as August 9, 1994.
