The national under-17 team, the Black Starlets, is scheduled to leave Accra on Friday for a training tour of the United Kingdom and the USA.

The chairman of the Black Starlets management team, Fred Crentsil, told Joy Sports a 30-member squad would make the trip.

The number would be pruned during the training tour before head coach David Duncan names his final eighteen-man team for next month?s world youth championship in Peru.

Mr Crentsil dismissed media reports that some members of the national under-17 team have been dropped from the squad because they are feared to be overage.

He stated that the entire membership of the silver winning squad from the African championship is still in camp with only a few additions made to the team to reflect Ghana?s new academicals policy.

Speculation about an overhaul of the team has been rife following the announcement by football?s world governing body, FIFA, that it would employ the Magnetic Resonance Imaging to detect the use of over-age players at the Peru championship.