BEACH SOCCER: Ghana ranked 8th in Africa

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Rapidly emerging Ghana saw no change in the latest Beach Soccer rankings released by the Beach Soccer Federation World Wide (BSWW).

Nicknamed the ''Black Sharks'', team Ghana is placed ahead of South Africa and Algeria but remain 60th in the world and 8th in the African sub region after an overall point accumulation of 85.

The lack of movement on the log can be attributed to the country’s little involvement in external competitions since the last ranking was released in March 2014. But despite the challenges facing beach soccer development in the West African state, it still boasts of two concurrent leagues.

The Ghana Beach Soccer Championship which is sponsored by CAL Bank enjoys a very modest package of Gh44,000 ($11,920.00). Similarly, the Division 1 League is also made up of ten teams but is yet to find a sponsor to invest in the fastest growing sport in the world.

There was little movement generally on the world stage too, with the top ten ranked nations retaining their respective spots.

A similar situation pertains on the continent as the top ten African teams remain unchanged with Senegal as the highest ranked country.

Following closely are Nigeria, Cote d’voire, Morocco Egypt, Madagascar, Libya, Ghana, Algeria and South Africa completing the top ten.

Beach Soccer spokesman, George Addo welcomed the latest rankings and said this year would see a big improvement in how the sport is run in Ghana. '' We can do better with more support and I am confident that would happen soon. Ghana has huge potential in this sport and we can only get better if we put our house in order now''.

A new Beach Soccer Management team is expected to be endorsed by the Ghana Football Association (GFA) any moment from now to pave way for a formidable re-branding and re-structuring of the sport.

The Beach Soccer Association is currently headed by Yaw Ampofo-Ankrah who was elected as the founder and President at a GBSA Congress in 2011. He was unopposed and retained in 2012 when the entire executive was dissolved by the clubs in a vote of no confidence for non-performance.

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