The National’s competition winners meet Manchester City at Emirates Palace
Two lucky readers got a chance to meet English Premier League leaders Manchester City at Emirates Palace last Friday after winning a competition by The National.
Woken by her baby early last Thursday, Dalia Mohamed scrolled through Facebook and tried to get back to sleep.
On a whim, she entered the competition for her husband.
“It’s quite hard to be a new parent if you haven’t had kids before and he needed something to pick him up,” said Ms Mohamed, who works at a humanitarian organisation.
“He’s been incredibly supportive since we’ve had our baby Malik and I thought I’d enter him even if it was a onein-a-million chance.”
Ms Mohamed submitted a 20word essay making the case for her husband.
“Honestly, I could have written 20 pages,” she said.
“I couldn’t explain how supportive he is for me and what a great father he is.”
They got news that they had won the competition a few hours later.
“I couldn’t believe it,” said her husband, Youssef Badr.
“I was telling her two days before, ‘do you know, Dalia, Manchester City is here in Abu Dhabi?’ I was showing her some pictures on Instagram but I couldn’t imagine that I’d be watching them a few days later. I kept calling her back, telling her ‘I can’t believe it’.”
Mr Badr joined the competition’s other winner, Mohammed Hassan, a physician from India who lives in Dubai.
They met the team, took photos, got autographs and watched a two-hour training session at Emirates Palace.
“It was a great experience,” said Mr Badr, who works at Sky News Arabia.
“I love football, I love the Premier League. Lots of kids were calling out the players’ names when they saw them and I was like them.”