Desailly wants to coach Black Stars

Marcel Desailly, the renown Ghanaian born French soccer star who plays for Chelsea in the English premier league, on Thursday said he would go into the coaching profession in the next five years.

Desailly, who is in town for three days to pursue a legal issue, in which he was defrauded to the tune of 488 million cedis, told GNA Sport that "I would love to start my coaching carrier with the Black Stars and I hope to be the first to take the stars to the World Cup."


He said his carrier as a soccer player would come to an end in a year's time adding that he would take some rest and take some coaching courses to prepare over a period of four years for the next phase of his carrier.


Desailly said currently he is not very familiar with the local soccer arena, adding that since he wants to bring his expertise home to Ghana after his playing carrier, he intends to spend sometime to familiarise himself with the local leagues and other competitions to be able to contribute effectively.


Desailly, affectionately called Odenke, noted that the system of recruiting players to Ghana's senior national team was not the best, saying that it was always best to build a formidable local team instead of depending heavily on foreign-based players.


"It is high time we concentrated on establishing high level football academies in Ghana to train local players who would be well motivated to stay and practice their profession in the country and be available to serve the nation anytime they are needed," he said.

Desailly said football teams in Europe are in serious business and are not willing to release their best African players to play for their national teams at their expense.


He said African national teams could only solve this problem sufficiently by building a strong dependable national team with local players.


"I am really worried that the performance of the Black Stars in recent times is not the best and my advise is that we must start building a local side now if we are serious about getting to the World cup," the first African world cup winner said.


Commenting on his frustration over problems he is facing in an effort to contribute to the development of this country, he said it was unfortunate how some home-based Ghanaians tend to dupe their foreign-based brothers who want to help the country.


Desailly said his dream to establish a school complex in East Legon to assist brilliant needy Ghanaian children was almost shattered as some people sold a parcel of land that did not belong to them to him at a whooping 600 million cedis.

Desailly said he is now dealing with the rightful owners of the land, adding that he has filed a case in court to retrieve an amount 488 million he paid to the alleged defrauders.


"I hope to win this case because if I did, it would serve as a green light to several of my colleagues abroad who wanted to do similar projects in Ghana," he said. "Otherwise the other potential investors would just back-off."


"I want to help my country - I want to help grow the economy from within, in my own small way, but such frustrations are discouraging and deterrents to potential investors. For me it is not about doing business, it's about contributing to education."


Desailly has filed a case against one Winfred Kumah of King Star Construction and a faction in Nungua, near Accra, who wrongly sold the land to him. The case is currently pending at the Osu Tribunal and has been adjourned to Tuesday 17 December 2002