Ghana’s beach soccer team, the black sharks are ready to compete this December with the best skilled beach soccer players in the world at the Copa Lagos tournament in Nigeria.

The annual beach soccer festival organised by Beach Soccer Worldwide (BSWW) has seen African champions Senegal, European giants Germany and five times world champions Brazil all take turns to thrill beach soccer fans in the previous three editions in Lagos.

Confirming Ghana’s participation, the Beach Soccer Association President Yaw Ampofo-Ankrah stated that the GFA has accepted the invitation and successfully registered team Ghana for the end of the year event.

“We are pleased that our invitation for BSWW has been accepted by the GFA. This will be our first time but that doesn’t mean we should automatically tag ourselves underdogs. We just have to prepare seriously in earnest to make a meaningful impact.”

He however sited finance as a big setback: “Unfortunately the challenge is sponsorship, so we hope to be knocking on some doors from now to December to enable gather a robust team to have a solid preparation towards this event.”

Nicknamed the Black Sharks, Ghana would not want to be the whipping boys even if considered underdogs due to the relative inexperience of their national team players.

Since launching the first Copa Lagos three years ago, expert’s participation from the sports industry has increased remarkably, and is projected to be even greater at the 2014 edition.

Ghana is ranked 71st in the world.