The government has issued detailed guidelines to prevent age-fraud in Sports and to ensure that over age players are not allowed to participate in National and other championships. In a communication sent to various sports associations and federations, the Sports Ministry has advised them to treat age fraud on the same lines as doping as both amount to cheating and violating the basic spirit of sports. The guidelines come in the wake of incidents of age fraud by athletes in some tournaments. The guidelines call for introducing a system of issuing identity cards to national athletes with photograph, signature and date of birth as well as the validity period of the card. It says that such identity cards should be made mandatory for all National and State competitions with effect from the first of February next year.