Seedorf and Khabib start global football school project
Clarence Seedorf and Khabib Nurmagomedov are combining to launch their own football school, which they say will use a “unique training methodology” that fuses football and mixed martial arts.
The Seedorf Khabib Performance Club was announced in Dubai yesterday, with the decorated former footballer and the former UFC champion aiming to open in 10 locations around the world “within the next five years”.
While details on destinations have yet to be provided, Nurmagomedov said that the performance clubs, set up through their new company SK Sports Holding, would be established in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
The retired former lightweight champion said: “For sure, if we open here in Dubai we need a performance club in Abu Dhabi. We’re going to work on this in future. We’re going to have Abu Dhabi and Dubai, two performance clubs ... minimum.”
A collaboration between Seedorf and Nurmagomedov took root after they met in 2020. According to Seedorf, they became “instant friends”. Their company will try to attract local and regional partnerships to operate the performance clubs.
“We have the same mission in life,” Seedorf said. “We want to give something back to the young generations. This is not a Dubai project; this is a global project. Our company is based in Dubai.
“We are going to bring in the knowledge, the coaches and methodology, monitoring and supporting from a marketing point of view to support the growth of each venue and each partnership.
“I know Khabib knows exactly the things that he can bring from an MMA perspective. I think I know what I can bring from a football perspective.”
Nurmagomedov, who said Africa also represented a key market, said: “Clarence became a success in his sport, I did in mine. We know how to become champions. Right now, our goal is to create champions. To create champions, you need a system; me and Clarence are going to create that system.”
“Think about the football schools you have everywhere – how many different football schools do you have? The difference is we’re going to select the coaches, we’re going to train those coaches.
“So there’s certified people in front of the kids who are going to be teaching both football and MMA.”