Football highlights African divide

ACCRA, Ghana (CNN) -- Chuchu, who has had polio since he was a small boy and helps find parking spaces for cars in Accra's central Osu district, lifts his thick stick aloft and waves it for joy in the air.

He and about 100 others have been watching the World Cup match between Ghana's national team, the Black Stars, and the Czech Republic on a huge screen in the open air on the capital's main shopping street.

When the Ghanaians scored the winning goal the city erupted. It was the moment they were all waiting for.

Of all the African newcomers to the 2006 World Cup, Ghana has the most impressive grassroots infrastructure and commitment to the game. National investment in the sport is high, the league system is highly organized and sponsorship, both state and commercial, is generous.

But, despite this backing, the football pitch has become a microcosm for the problems that face a country known as the gateway back into Africa.

The problem of how to blend their overseas-based elite players with their huge salaries and often self-serving demands with the far more modestly rewarded local players lies at the heart of the conundrum.

The majority of African players at the 2002 World Cup played their club football abroad and the globalization of the sport's real talent has speeded up.

Alongside this on-the-pitch squabbling, the process of repatriating the African diaspora is high on the agenda of the Ghanaian government.

Although some of the educated Ghanaians who left to make their fortune abroad, are coming home, Otanka Obetsebi-Lamptey, the Minister of Tourism and Diaspora Relations is keen to tempt many more back.

"We need their skills and their investment potential" he explains. "We try to facilitate their return."

Those who do come find themselves relatively well-off compared with their fellow Ghanaians. They have the money to buy a plot of land and build a dream home. They can invest in a number of attractive, long-term financial projects. But the gated communities that are springing up only emphasize the huge divide between the haves and have-nots sleeping rough.

When it comes to football the gulf is just as large between the foreign players and the local members of the team.

Additionally the trend of exporting talent to rich countries that accept them with open arms and, as in the case of a couple of star players, absorb them into their national sides may destroy any chance Ghana has of ever winning the World Cup.

As the match comes to an end Chuchu tells anyone who will listen that Ghana has won the African Cup of Nations four times, triumphed twice in the world under-17 championships and been runner-up twice at the world youth championship.

He may feel optimistic about the Black Stars chances of winning, but for others the World Cup still remains merely a tantalizing prospect.

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