Youth Development and Its Limitations: A Critical Examination of the Role Football Academies Play in Ghana among Local Communities

Background: Football academies in Africa, and in Ghana in particular, are often portrayed as sites of a new African victimhood (Bale 2004; Darby 2007; Poli 2006). These studies put to the foreground international relations issues such as neocolonialism, exploitation, migration and dependency of the Global South.

Aims: My research turns previous research on its head, by examining the role football academies play in Ghana within the local communities. I expand upon my 2014 Wingate Congress paper with new insights and critical perspectives from my ongoing fieldwork.

Methods: I conducted ethnographic research on four football academies in Ghana that combines observations of the academies` activities with interviews held with a variety of people in order to capture the diverse opinions relating to the academies` activities, including owners, directors and coaches; academy boys and girls; the children`s parents and different locals surrounding the academy such as fans and store sellers. Following current trends in development studies, I evaluated these academies from the perspective of local actors and communities, unlike previous research overlooking the importance of local contexts.

Results and Discussion: In light of my latest findings from my fieldwork, I argue that football academies can be evaluated as engines of development in different areas, including sports, education, health, social welfare and economy. Yet, football academies can also expose the ways in which discourses of development are leveraged for personal and institutional advantages. Therefore, we should take a critical approach in evaluating what benefits football academies offer local individuals and communities.