GFA reach deal with Manchester City

Kwesi Nyantakyi will be in England to sign a new coaching deal with Manchester City, supersport.com can reveal. The English Premier League champions and the GFA will have a mutually beneficial relationship as they tap into the strengths of each other.

Supersport.com understands that the deal is among a series of ground-breaking deals the FA seeks to sign in an ambitious bid to leverage the country's growing football brand to plug holes in its own expertise.

Manchester City's win of the English elite league last season came on the back of an increase in scientific techniques in coaching and administration, and the Ghana FA has identified the club's resources as good for its own ailing systems.

Beyond that, the FA will be looking at exchange programmes for coaches, referees and administrators in Ghana. For the Citizens, Ghana's vaunted talent pool will be open to them, on mutually agreed terms, for them to tap into for their academy.

In August, the Ghana FA reached a cooperation deal with their Chinese counterparts to further develop football in both countries, with the Ghana helping in their youth football while the Asians prop Ghana in women's football.

City's ambitions in Africa

Only last month, a £100 million-plus development complex was announced by the Manchester club as it seeks to diversify its resources and look more inwardly for players in the future.

The complex will open in time for the 2014-15 season as an 80-acre site opposite the Et1ihad Stadium is transformed from industrial wasteland into an academy with 16 football pitches, a 7,000-capacity stadium for youth and reserve-team matches and a first-team training building.

That aside, former Arsenal and City player Patrick Vieira has a special interest in Africa. Despite playing for France, he was born in Senegal and has returned to the country to set up the Diambars football academy.

The success of the academy is evidenced in the fact that the academy produced eight players for Senegal's team at the just-ended London Olympics. Vieira is intent on replicating the relationship his former coach, Arsene Wenger, had with Africa that has seen several players from the continent blaze the trail for them in the Premier League.