Ghanaian girls humiliate Nigeria in Lagos

Ghana's female Academicals, on Saturday at the National Stadium, Surulere, Lagos, confirmed their readiness to end Nigeria's monopoly of female fooball in Africa with a 5-0 pounding of their Nigerian counterparts in the finals of the First West African Academicals Football Championship.

After coming from behind to play a one-all draw with the Nigerians in their first meeting during the week, the Ghanaians went straight to business and completely dominated play in what could be described as a one-sided encounter.

Two-goal heroine, Anita Afi, scored the curtain raiser in the 10th minute to send warning signals to the Nigerians.

Twenty-three minutes later, Afi hit target again to increase the scoreline.

Ghana's Ruth Asante compounded Nigeria's woes in the 40th minute when she converted a penalty after a Ghanaian attacker was fouled in Nigeria's vital area by a defender.

After the interval, the Nigerians tried to redeem their battered image by making some incursions into the Ghanaian area, but later lost possesion to the better organised Ghanaians, who were surprisingly motivated by the home crowd on match day.

Agnes Koffi and Lettisia Ziplki later scored in the 75th and 80th minutes respectively, to give Ghana her biggest victory over her perennial conquerors.

Speaking with ghanaweb after the match, coach of the victorious Ghanaian side, John Eskum said: "We want to revive football in Ghana through the youths. We were overwhelmed by the victory. We knew that we would win today, but not to the tune of five goals."

The competition was organised by the Nigeria School Sports Federation (NSSF), under the auspices of the Supreme Council for Sports in Africa (Zone 3).

Nigeria stopped Ghana when both sides met in the qualifiers for the Athens 2004 Olympic Games.