The Ghana Football Association (GFA) recently launched the Elite Talent Identification Programme (ETIP) in Accra to develop young talents.
The ETIP, which aims to identify and develop the best-talented youth players of both sexes across the country, is expected to form the base of the various junior national teams.
Following its successful start in three regions – Volta, Central and Western, the GFA ETIP took off in the Eastern Region yesterday, May 12 to Sunday, May 18, 2025.
The programme, which is currently ongoing in Koforidua between May 12-14, will continue to Somanya in the Manya Krobo Municipality from May 16-18, 2025.
The ETIP also aims to educate Physical Education (PE) tutors in pre-tertiary schools, Colts football coaches, district coordinators and individuals interested in basic coaching techniques, talent identification & development, and scouting through seminars and other football festivals.
It will further enable basic school pupils to showcase their talents for selection into junior national teams.
Director of the GFA Elite Talent Identification Programme, Papa Nii Lartey, said at the launch that going forward, the national teams and GFA academies would be supplied with players from this pool.
“About a year ago, under the leadership of the President and the Technical Director, we were tasked to put together the framework of identifying the best of the best talents in the entire nation, which is called the Elite Programme.
“We have been able to assemble very competent coaches who have gone through a training programme in scouting to select the players so that we can move the programme forward,’’ he added.
The ETIP director highlighted that the programme has a target of recruiting about 5,000 talents nationwide that will form the base for the policy to thrive upon.
“Based on our analysis, we realised that for us to cover the entire nation, we would need to identify about 5,000 talents. The idea is that no talent will be left behind, so we want to be able to go into the rural areas, the villages and wherever there is a talent in this country. We want to identify that talent for the GFA,” he said.
Scouts, coaches and talent developers would be deployed to work with the regional football associations to hunt for young, talented footballers who will form the base of the national youth teams.
President of the GFA, Kurt Edwin-Simeon Okraku, reiterated at the launch that this well-thought-out structure will be fully implemented across the various districts and regions in Ghana.
“This project is for both girls and boys – we have 15 zones for the boys and five zones for the girls in the Greater Accra Region. Based on the players that we select, we will break it into 20 districts.
