DSC Championship for Academies gets bigger
dubai — UAE clubs Shabab Al Ahli Dubai, Al Nasr and Ajman will be pitting their wits and skills against some top football academies of Arsenal, AS Roma and La Liga in the second edition of the Dubai Sports Council Championship for Football Academies.
Sixty-six teams are participating in the championship, which is spread across 12 weeks. The Championship began on November 11 and will run until March next year. The reception to the championship has been overwhelming with a 43 percent increase from last year. The tournament has attracted 1,300 players from over 100 nationalities. The inaugural edition had seen 47 teams and 900 players take part.
Teams are competing in six different age categories – Under-8, Under-10, Under-12, Under-14, Under-16 and Under-18. The championship, which is being organised by Dubai Sports Council (DSC) in association with Royal Emirates Sports Academy (RESA), will see 32 fixtures played out at the Dubai Sports City, every weekend.
“When I first arrived in Dubai and started to work with the academies, the first thing I really missed is what we call the challenge – the challenge for the kids. I think we have amazing players of football here. I have absolutely no doubt about that. I have seen in all academies a lot of players with a lot of potential. Even on the streets, the kids playing, they have a lot of potential and they are waiting for an opportunity,” former Real Madrid and Spanish star Michel Salgado, one of the brains behind the tournament, said on Wednesday.
“But we miss one thing in this country and that is competition a real challenge every weekend, something that we get easily in Europe. That is why in my first meeting with Dubai Sports Council, I tried to express my concerns about the situation. We agreed and this tournament was born. We started slowly in the first year to see how it will work. The feedback was amazing, so for us now, it’s a real challenge to keep growing.
“Our dream is to grow even bigger and have a tournament where we can see the best talents of both sides - from both the expatriate academies and the Emirati clubs – competing against each other every weekend. That is our eventual goal,” he added.
“We are really pleased because this tournament was the first of DSC’s initiatives to involve private academies in official competitions alongside our local club academies, thus contributing towards the overall development of the youth sector in Dubai and the UAE,” said Ali Omar Al Balooshi, the Director of Sports Development at DSC and the Tournament Director.
Former Swedish international Christian Wilhelmsson, the director of RESA, said: “I am really happy to be here and have this opportunity to be making a difference to the youth. From my experience in the region, and I have been here for a while, there is a lack of competition and that is so important when you are young – to get those weekly games. So it is important to create a platform where young players get a chance to compete against each other and that’s what this is all about – to develop the local teams, and the skillsets and mindset of local youth to help them become much better football players.”
james@khaleejtimes.com