New Delhi: Close on the heels of a series of complaints about alleged age fudging in the under-16 national football championships, the ministry of sports, on Friday, issued guidelines to all national federations to stop such malpractices.

The ministry also said that a national code against age fraud would be formulated soon.

Issuing the guidelines, the government has suggested that in the event of conclusive proof that an athlete has committed age fraud, he or she should be banned for a period of 2 years on the first detection and for 5 years on any subsequent detection.

In the nine-point guideline, the ministry said each federation should notify in advance the list of empanelled hospitals for conduct of age related medical tests. All federations have been asked to maintain a national register for athletes with state-wise details, which should be treated as a public document.

The sports ministry, sources said, was perturbed by the reports that a lot of states had fielded over-age players in the Coca Cola Mir Iqbal Hussain Trophy qualifiers. It has also taken note of the development in the under-16 national camp where 17 footballers were found over-age only a couple of months before the Asian meet.