Dubai: The incoming General Secretary of the Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Sports Creativity Award is confident of taking the initiative to a truly global audience in the near future.
Dr Moza Al Merri, who was recently appointed as the new general secretary, starting with the ninth edition of the MBR Creative Sports Award, told media that she was confident the initiative can reach for the stars.
“There is no doubt that we have high ambitions for the MBR Creative Sports Award. I believe that these are truly the Oscars of sport, be it due to the value of the prize money on offer or the way we execute the awarding ceremony or even with the sports personalities who attend our awarding function each year,” Al Merri told Gulf News after officially launching the ninth edition at the DSC premises on Thursday.
“It is now our responsibility to retain these high standards that have been set and even seek means to grow it further. All people involved with the award have been constantly moving in this direction of evolving the award each year, and with our adaptation to the new digital age we are confident of moving in the right direction,” she added.
Launched in 2008, the MBR Al Maktoum Creative Sports Award is one of the entities coming under the MBR Global Initiatives announced in 2010 by His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai as part of ‘UAE Vision 2021’.
“This award is in line with our leaders’ way of thinking. Next year we will mark ten years of this award and the focus will definitely be to see this award grow at the global level. We have spoken to international federations and associations and they have been looking forward to participating in this award each year. This is something we want,” Al Merri disclosed.
“We want people to wait for these awards each year without doing any sort of marketing or publicity, just like the cinematic world awaits the Oscars. It is part of our ambition to reach such a stage, and I think we are not very far away from achieving this,” she added.
With a total value of Dh7.5 million, the committee will commence receiving applications for the award from April 1, while the deadline for receiving entries will be August 31. Only sports achievements of individuals, teams and sports associations achieved between September 21, 2016 to August 31, 2017 will be considered for the award.
There will be three separate categories of the award, namely individual, team and federations. The individual category rewards individual players, coaches, administrators and referees who have attained sports creativities at local, Arab and international level, while the team award is allocated to teams that have attained sports creativity at the local, Arab and international levels and the final category is given away to sports creativity at local, Arab and international platforms.
“This time we want to promote the award by personally visiting associations locally and internationally while also using seminars and forums such as Sport Accord,” Al Merri said.
The arbitration process for the award will commence in October while all winners will be made public on November 27 before the awards function on January 10, 2018.
FACT BOX
Total value of the award is Dh7.5 million
Start for receiving applications: April 1
Deadline for receiving entries: August 31
Arbitration process commences: October 2017
Announcement of winners: November 27
Awarding function: January 10, 2018
Further information at: www.mbrawards.com