Ghana give Nigeria support

The president of Ghana's Football Association, Ben Koffie, has told BBC Sport Online that he believes a West African-staged World Cup could outshine even the 2002 tournament in Japan and Korea.

Nigeria confirmed on Monday their intention to be the key partner in a West African bid, held together with Cameroon, Benin, Togo and Ghana themselves.

And Koffie argued the key to the success of the bid would be the geographical closeness of the countries.

"The bid by Nigeria will serve Africa better because they are not going it alone but want to spread out the event to the whole of West Africa," Koffie said.

"The distances between our countries are such that if the World Cup is brought to West Africa, it will be easier than that of Japan and Korea," he added.

The head of the Nigeria 2010 bid, Segun Odegbami, said the plan is to have four of the venues in Nigeria and the rest spread across her neighbours.

However, despite being so hopeful on the bid, the Ghana FA boss was non-committal on whether he felt the bid would be successful or not.

"Bidding is one thing and being successful is another," he said.

"Let's wait until we cross the bridge before we start making conclusions."

He added that apart from being exposed to the entire world in hosting a big event like the World Cup, countries like Ghana, Cameroon, Benin, Togo and Nigeria would benefit from being able to show the world what they are capable of doing.

Ghana and Nigeria co-hosted the 2000 Nations Cup, an event generally considered to be a success.