We’ve discovered talented footballers - Stephen Appiah

Stephen “Tornado” Appiah, former captain of the senior national team, the Black Stars, has said they have discovered a lot of talents in the just ended “Betway Talent Hunt” exercise.

He said Ghana can boast of lots of talented footballers, but the major challenge, has been how to unearth them.

Appiah made this statement at the last tour of the Betway Talent Hunt exercise at the University of Ghana Stadium, Legon.

The novelty event, which sets out to unearth rising talents across the country was introduced last year by Ghana’s forerunner in sports gaming.

This year’s hunt cuts across the length and breadth of the country in search of young aspiring footballers within the ages of 18 and 25.

This year’s Betway Talent Hunt, has toured and recruited several talents from the Central region, Ashanti region, Northern region, Brong Ahafo and the Greater Accra region of Ghana.

In an interview with the GNA Sports, the former Juventus superstar said, the exercise was good initiative, which would help to discover talents for clubs, both in and outside the country.

“When it comes to talents, Ghana is the best. Our goal is seeing some of these players play outside the country.

“We have seen lots of talents so far. Last year at a point we were asking ourselves, are all these talents in Ghana. This year Sunyani and Tamale have been great. Some of these players have the qualities to play in the Premier League,” he said.

Maxwell Konadu, the assistance coach of the Black Stars, said with proper infrastructure and planning, a lot of talents would be discovered, since that has also been a problem in the development of talents in the country.

He congratulated Betway Ghana Limited, for the initiative, adding that he was not surprised about the quality of talents discovered so far in the exercise.

According to the organizers of the exercise, those who excelled would be recruited after being tried and tested through a series of screening exercises by an experienced scouting team led by the current technical coordinator of the Black Stars, Stephen Appiah, Coach Michael Osei, Coach Eric Antwi of Lizzy Sports Complex, Godfred Adoube, Sam Johnson, Mohammed Gargo and Coach Maxwell Konadu.

The winners of this year’s Betway Talent Search would be drafted into the four Ghana Premier league clubs sponsored by Betway Ghana.

The Betway Talent Search falls in line with the outfit’s continuous effort to develop football in Ghana.