Accra Basketball League chairman Ayitey Bulley, has disclosed that the Greater Accra Basketball Association will need close to a million dollars to develop the league.

In the absence of a national basketball league, the ABL together with other regional leagues like the Western Region basketball league, the Ashanti Region basketball league and others are the only franchises which engage players and teams on a semi-professional basis.

Basketball in the country has experienced stunted growth partly due to inadequate investment and the missing piece of state engagement. The ABL, which is Ghana's premier, is also the nation's biggest and involves a large number of teams.

Despite its expansion and growth in popularity, the ABL still runs on private funds of organizers and the meagre profit earned from the registration fees of participating teams. Mr. Bulley indicates that even less development will be experienced without financial support.

"The league can be as big as the amount of money we put into it. So conservative estimates puts us at about GHc300,000 - that mean we're just cruising along. But if we want to make it a big thing we'll be talking close to half a million [or a] million dollars.

"Today we are playing basketball at the prisons headquarters, it's an outdoor court [so] if it rains, it rains off. I'll like to see the day we can play basketball at anytime and in any weather so we'll like to build an indoor court. we'll like to have proper media coverage, with wire media following the game and livestreaming of games. That is the level we'll like to get and if we want to get there, about a million dollars will get us there," Mr. Bulley said.

He also revealed besides infrastructural development, human resource are also targeted for development.

You know when you're getting to that level, you have to start investing in training coaches, referees, having them have proper certifications for the kind of level you're getting to. Today if you go to the prisons court we manage - we find some chairs to sit on but you should have branding opportunities and branding boards for advertisement. So to put all things in place, I may even be understating it but a million dollars is not far off. We really want to get there."

The 2022 season of the ABL will tipoff on March 8 at the Prison's court. Turbojets play Spartans at 3pm in a Division II encounter.