Ghana's Ambitious Top 10 Plan By 2015

When Kwesi Nyantakyi became the youngest FA president in the country's history shortly before the 2006 World Cup, his team were able to achieve their intended target of making the Black Stars a top 20 country by 2010.

In fact, they did better, with Ghana ranking 14th in 2007 after a good show in Germany the year before. Five years on, the president wants the team to be a top 10 country by the year 2015.

"We are in the second phase of my administration's business plan for Ghana football. We have a new four year business plan, to succeed the first one between 2006-2010. We have discussed with ExCo, Ghana FA Congress and the clubs and they have agreed to the efficacy of our plan."

"We said we want Ghana to be in top 20 in the world by 2010. We reached 14th place in the world by 2007. By 2015, we have to hit a single digit in terms of ranking for the Black Stars."

Nyantakyi spoke also about the need for his outfit to become autonomous, especially in the wake of recent public agitations regarding the FA's request of $8 million for the coming Nations Cup.

"If you look at our first business plan we wanted to raise $9 million a year to fund our operations. We were looking for sponsorship, but never got the money we wanted."

He also admitted the dire need of money for women's football, which his administration had not been able to get off the ground.

"If we could raise $20m a year, the FA will become financially autonomous. We will not rely on government to fund the national teams."

The money will be used to embark on, among other projects, development programs like training for coaches and administrators.