Beach Soccer: Keta festival to host league

The Ghana Beach Soccer Association (GBSA) is expected to thrill residents of Keta in the Volta region next weekend when the exciting sport returns after a break of three weeks.

The spectacular Hegbotsosto festival of the Chiefs and people of Anloga in the Volta Region will provide the perfect setting for over half a dozen beach soccer matches.

This was disclosed in an interview by the association's spokesman George Addo. "We have long planned to spread our activities beyond the La Beach Soccer Arena but it has never been financially prudent due to a number of challenges".

He revealed that although CAL Bank sponsors the Championship to the tune of Gh44,000, the association simply cannot run an entire season on the amount. "The GBSA believes that by spreading our tentacles, we can attract potential new sponsors to come onboard and also see the limitless potential of this amazing sport".

Ghana currently has the only such set up in Africa; a double tier Championship and a Division one league that consists of twenty clubs in total. The leagues first kicked off in 2011 with Voltic Mineral water as non cash sponsors providing water and logistics for every team.

The obvious lack of exposure and shoe string budget of beach soccer has meant that the GBSA is constantly facing turbulent challenges.

Currently, defending champions Keta Sunset lead the Championship by with 36 points followed by city rivals Havedzi Mighty Warriors.

However, several clubs have been unable to raise teams on a weekly basis to honour matches due to lack of financial muscle.

In another development, the GBSA has confirmed that all relevant documents requested by the Confederation of African Football (Caf) have been submitted to the GFA for onward transmission to Cairo.

GBSA President Yaw Ampofo Ankrah is optimistic that the process will be successful. "We provided all our credentials to the GFA as directed by CAF in September through Caf officer Francis Oti Akenteng and GFA Gen Secretary Emmanuel Gyimah so hopefully this would allow Ghana present a team at the 2015 African qualifiers in Seychelles".

Seychelles will host the 2015 African beach soccer championship from the 15th - 19th of April after a decision was taken by the Caf executive committee during one of its meetings at the Cairo headquarters.

It is expected that eight teams, including hosts Seychelles will take part in the championship. The winners and runners-up will represent Africa in the Fifa beach soccer World Cup in Portugal.

It was only last year that Seychelles launched its first beach football league and to date several teams are actively trying to develop the sport.

However the country is currently putting up a state of the art beach soccer stadium which is estimated to cost about $1.1m.

Fifa has described beach soccer which is the fastest growing mass participation team sport as the next frontier in the sport world wide.

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