Beach Soccer Clubs Prepare For League Kick-Off?

The Ghana Beach Soccer Association (GBSA) has confirmed Saturday 13th October as kick-off to the 2012/13 Beach Soccer league season with full FIFA rules. Following a challenging but exciting maiden season, which was played as a double tier league between 20 clubs, the GBSA expects an even more competitive season. In July 2012, the Prampram Ghanaman Soccer Centre and La Beach Soccer Arena hosted the first ever FIFA Beach Soccer technical course navigated by FIFA instructor Talib Hilal.

The success of the one week residential course prompted the FIFA official to urge Ghana to form a national beach soccer team by the end of 2012.

With this challenge, the stakes have been raised for clubs, officials and players alike in a bid to be part of the historic national beach soccer team. The President of the GBSA Yaw Ampofo Ankrah is confident that with the new partnership and support from the Ghana Football Association (GFA), beach soccer can meet the high expectations and match FIFA's challenge. But he has cautioned that there will not be a rush to form a national team if the right structures and conditions are not in place. ''We are all excited by the confidence and encouragement from FIFA and indeed, the date and venue for the CAF qualifiers for the 2013 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup are yet to be determined but in order to form a team to play qualifiers, we need to follow the right path and do things the right way with the GFA's full input and support'' The GBSA is also in talks with a few Ghanaian and international sports marketing experts in the USA, Spain, France and the UK who can advise on how best to take beach soccer in Ghana to the next level.

According to Ampofo-Ankrah, beach soccer has progressed steadily over the past five years in Ghana and it would make no sense to rush into such a venture unprepared.

Even though beach soccer has been played for fun in Ghana for many years, it was only in 2008 that the first official competition was organised at the La Pleasure Beach resort.

Following that success, there have been coastal competitions in Senya Bereku in the Central region, Ada/Prampram in Greater Accra and Keta in the Volta region. The GBSA's progress from a struggling association to one of the most well organised in the country did not go unnoticed by one of Ghana's leading financial institutions CAL Bank.

CAL Bank's initial sponsorship of Gh40,000 for the 2011/12 season, meant that the association was able to organise two leagues simultaneously before another sponsor Clementia Contacto from South Africa got onboard with Gh25,000 package for the Division 1 league.

Keta Sunset from the Volta region emerged winners to claim the Championship title whilst Teshie United were crowned Division 1 Champions and with it automatic promotion to the top tier.

The GBSA is also in partnership with the website www.worldsportscentre.com which features all the latest beach soccer news.

According to the association, fixtures for the new season will be released four weeks ahead of the league's commencement.