Ghana coach Ratomir Dujkovic is predicting that Ghana’s ‘Black Stars’ will be the best team in Africa in the coming years, and believes that it is from now that we will see the emergence of football in nations from the East and West of Africa.

Dujkovic, who led his team to the World Cup Finals for the first time this summer thinks that this is only the beginning. “I believe that Ghana will be the strongest (team) in Africa in the coming years.”

Speaking after the Black Stars 1-0 loss to Nigeria’s ‘Super Eagles’ on Monday in their African Cup of Nations encounter, Dujkovic said that he feels that Ghana will benefit from the planned huge investment in development by FIFA.

“We will now receive big money from sponsors like FIFA etc, and that will give us the facilities to do better work.”

The Serb coach added that he thinks, with this added investment, that the advantages currently held by teams from the North and South of Africa will soon be wiped out - leading to the emergence of talent from nations in the East and West of Africa.

“In Africa, apart from the North and South which are like Europe, the rest of the countries don't have the facilities for football,” said Dujkovic.

“And for that reason, I am very pleased that FIFA is putting money in to develop football in Africa.”

“They have the talent, and with the money, they will become much better than they are now.”

“That will also be good for European clubs because players will come from Africa to play in Europe.”

“They will be expensive. Not like now. Now they are very cheap.”

But Dujkovic maintains that until there are huge improvement in the youth development of football, especially in Ghana, but also elsewhere throughout the continent, it is going to be a slow process.

“The problem with Ghana is that they don't have youth competitions, they have only a few academies, and they don't have Under-20 or Under-17 leagues,” said the Black Stars coach. “They have to start on that, they have to build those competitions.”

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