Roentgenographic assessment of skeletal ages of Asian junior youth football players.

Skeletal age of 50 football players participating in the Asian Junior Youth Tournament was assessed in an attempt to verify their stated chronological age to have a fair competition. Roentgenograms of hand and wrist (Greulich - Pyle standards), ilium and ischium were used for evaluation. More than half of the players had a bone age over the 16 year age limit of the Tournament and 30 percent of them had reached the maximum skeletal maturity of 19 years of age or over. Skeletal age is a reliable and dependable guide for assessing the physical maturity in this age group provided that proper local or international standards are set up.