Al Shaikh, Khaldoun get MBR nod for 2018
Mo Salah adjudged outstanding Arab athlete in 10th edition of annual awards
Dubai: Turki Al Shaikh, Chairman, General Sports Authority and President, Saudi Arabia National Olympic Committee, Manchester City Chairman Khaldoun Khalifa Al Mubarak and Liverpool’s Egyptian star footballer Mohammad Salah were among the prominent winners at the Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Creative Sports Award 2018.
The winners in various categories were announced at the Palace Downtown by Mattar Al Tayer, Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the award in the presence of former Fina President Mustafa Larfaoui and Moaza Al Marri, General Secretary of the award, on Monday.
Al Shaikh was chosen as the ‘Arab Sports Personality’, Al Mubarak as the ‘Local Sports Personality’ for his tireless work of leading Manchester City to nine titles in ten years while supporting football in the UAE and Salah as the ‘Outstanding Arab Athlete’ during 2018.
Themed the ‘Glory Makers’, the awards will be presented at a special function at the Dubai World Trade Centre on January 9, 2019. Introduced in 2009 under the patronage of Shaikh Hamdan Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of Dubai Sports Council, the award falls under the Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives.
The award undergoes a complex process of selection through a calendar year with an Arbitration Committee eventually announcing a final list of winners in November.
Among the past winners of the award are Shaikh Nahyan Bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of State for Tolerance (2017), Shaikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai and UAE Minister of Finance and Prince Ali Bin Al Hussain, President of Jordan Football Association (both in 2016) and Princess Haya Bint Al Hussain, wife of His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai and Prince Nawaf Bin Faisal Bin Fahad, President of Saudi Arabia National Olympic Committee (both in 2015).
The award is first of its kind in the area of sports creativity that is intended to fill a major gap in sports to honour creative athletes in recognition of their outstanding achievements, support the efforts made to develop the sports sector in various fields, and uplift it to international standards. In its initial phase, the Award was restricted to the local and Arab levels with three main categories determined for each level namely Individual Sports Creativity, Group Sports Creativity, and Corporate Sports Creativity.
Since the fourth edition in 2012, the award went international with the inclusion of a Corporate Creative Sports category, and since 2015 it has come under the Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives in order to support and disseminate knowledge, vision of the future, leadership, empowerment of community and contribution to the sustainable human development.