Soccer News of Sunday, 30 October 2005

Source: listowell yesu bukarson,koln,germany.

Monchengladbach To Welcome Black Stars

The Management of German Bundasliga side Borussia Monchinggladbach have express interest in making available its facilities to the Senoir National Team, the Black Stars for their pre-training towards the impending World cup in that country next Summer.

This follows a visit I (LISTOWELL YESU BUKARSON) made to the Company of the Director of Athletes first Sportmanagement, a sports consultancy firm based in Koln, Germany, Mr. Andre Thompson. Athletes First Sportmanagement are the managers of Ghana's Eric Nkansah and Vida Anim.

The Chief Executive officer of Monchengladbach, Mr. Stephen A. C. Schippers welcoming us to the newly-built over 60 thousand capacity morden stadium said he had heard a lot about Ghana because of the likes of Sammy Osei Kufour's exploits as well as the transfer of Michiael Essien amongst a number of the stars in the fold of the Star and will therefore be prepared to host Ghana for the World Cup.

He said if the needed pragmatics modalities were put together by Athletes First Sportmanagementand the GFA, then the needed discussions could be started as soon as pssible for the stars to camp there for the World Cup.

According to him even though the draw has not been made for Ghana to get to Know where it will be based, the team can pre-train there before moving to it's base for the tourenament.

Mr. Schippers told me that the stadium is one year old and needed some kind of publicity and if the Black Stars dicide to camp there it will be an added advantage to the team.This he said will play to Ghana's advantage in terms of negotiations for the facility.The City of Monchingladbash,he said will also root behind the Stars.

He said most of the qualified teams have already expressed interest in camping at the facility because Monchengladbach has not been chosen as world cup centre and therefore the team which comes there will have access to all the facilities including the main stadium.

Mr.Andre Thomson whose Athlete First Sportmanagement firm is represented by "AUTHENTIC SPORTS NETWORX", a Sports management firm based in Kumasi,said he is prepared to hold discussions with the Sports authorities as soon as possible to see the possibility of arranging for the Stars to camp in Germabny.

We also visited other Bundesliga sites such as F/c KOLN and Beyer Leverkusen as possible alternatives but we were told that the F/C Koln stadium will be uesd by Mighty Brasil for their pre-camping.