The President of the Ghana Hockey Association, Richard Akpokavie has appealed to corporate bodies for financial support to host the 2016 World Hockey League series Round one  which will be Ghana' s first time of playing host to a major hockey event since 2012.

The national Hockey team has stepped up preparations to host the tournament at  Theodosia Okoh Hockey Stadium in Accra from the 9th to the 11th of September.

The four-nation tournament will determine the male and female teams that will take a one step closer to the International Hockey Federation's (FIH) World Cup in 2018.

Both male and female national teams from Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya and Namibia, would compete to see who qualifies for the second round of the World League in Valencia, Spain, for the female category and Bangladesh for the male category, both in February 2017.

For the Ghana team, the tournament is an opportunity to build enough ranking points to enable them to qualify for the next Commonwealth Games to be held in Gold Coast, Australia, in April 2018.

The President of the Ghana Hockey Association, Richard Akpokavie said everything was on course to deliver a successful tournament.

"Funding has been a challenge to the organisation of this competition, cooperate bodies have given us something but what we have is less than the budgeted  GH 100000", a member of the local organising committee, Elizabeth king says.

She has however assured Ghanaians of the teams qualification to the next stage of the competition.

"Consdering the kind of training we have done, though they are not in camp because of finacial difficulties, I can tell you they are prepared to qualify to the next stage."

By Abdul Malik/ghanaguardian.com