The passing was just a bit too accurate, the ball control too silky and Russia's seven-a-side football team stand accused of being too good after sweeping aside Holland 12-1 yesterday on Olympic Green.

Jan-Hein Evers, the Holland coach, was not the only one left scratching his head. Many in the crowd were in wonder at the skill levels in a competition for players with cerebral palsy.

It brought to mind the case of the Spain intellectually disabled basketball team at the Sydney Paralympics in 2000, who astonished spectators with their man-to-man marking and shooting. After running away with the gold medal at the Games, one of the Spain team admitted that only two of the squad of 12 were mentally handicapped with IQs under the qualifying level of 75. Some were engineers and holders of university degrees. Their coach even told them at one stage to slow down the scoring rate because they were playing too well.

Other basketball teams and athletes in different classes were shown to have cheated and faked documents and the classification was suspended from the Games and remains so. The cerebral palsy classification and the Paralympic Games as a whole may face a similar test of their credibility.

Evers told The Times last night that Russia were not only much better than his team, but that some of their players would be good enough to play professionally in the Netherlands. “We knew Russia were the No1 in the world and have a lot of good players,” Evers said. “We hoped we could win and you know the ball is round so you have a chance, but it was not possible. But, yes, always we have doubts about the classification.

“All Russia's players were classified in the same way as the others. It's difficult. We are playing football in a discipline where there are one or two players in every team you have a doubt about. But the Russia team is so good, almost they can make money.”

Terrie Moore, the head of classification for the Cerebral Palsy International Sports & Recreation Association (CPISRA), which was reviewing the match, said that there were concerns. “Classification is an ongoing process, we evaluate and renew every certification,” Moore said.

“We've become aware of anomalies in the classification. No one has actually approached me about it. There is a procedure in place where the chair classifier has the power to take actions.

“There are different degrees of cerebral palsy and some coaches don't understand that there are more than four types of cerebral palsy. They understand football and strategy, but there are coaches from some countries who have no technical knowledge, so where are they getting their information from? Cerebral palsy can be a changing condition, so we review players' status. Some new players have been introduced.”

Cerebral palsy is a name given to a collection of movement disorders in which the muscles do not respond normally. It is caused by brain damage, often before, during or just after birth. There is a broad scale of symptoms, from the most severe, forcing use of a wheelchair, to the less serious, where only one side of the body is affected.

Athletes who classify as CP5 to CP8 can take part in this sport, with CP5 being the most affected. At least one CP5 or CP6 player and no more than three CP8 players may be on the field at a time. Players are classified by a panel of three, typically a doctor, a former player and a sports technician. The game is played on a pitch about three quarters of the size of a normal football pitch in 30-minute halves.

Despite becoming more rigorous, classification is to the Paralympics what drugs is to the Olympic Games. “Classification cheating is a problem,” one former Paralympian who did not want to be named said. “We think people are sometimes in the wrong class and sometimes people deliberately play up their disability when they are being tested.”

There have been a number of high-scoring results at this year's Paralympics. In addition to the Holland match, Russia, winners of the gold medal in Sydney in 2000 and the silver medal four years later in Athens, had a 6-0 victory against China, who were defeated 8-0 by Brazil, and Ukraine beat Great Britain 8-1.

“Everyone was classified before June this year,” Evers said. “No one made protests, but I think for future championships we need to work it out. In December, there will be a general meeting of CPISRA and we have to ask some questions.”