Abu Dhabi : Never in the 40 years of its history has the Gulf Cup been reeling under such uncertainty and security threats.
Scheduled to be held in Yemen from today to December 5, the security issue is taking greater precedence than the technical and physical preparations of the teams taking part in the regional tournament which feature: Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Qatar, UAE, Oman, Bahrain and Yemen.
In addition to the fact that most of the tournament's facilities, hotels and stadiums are not yet finished. The third problem facing the tournament is the timing of the competition, which comes before the end of the Asian Games with most of the participants in the Gulf Cup having their key players taking part in Guangzhou and only one month before the kick-off of the Asian Cup in Doha.
This has led to most of the teams taking part in the Gulf Cup announcing that they will send their second team as they give more importance to how they feature in the Asian Cup and the Asian Games than in the Gulf Cup.
The tournament has played a major role in the progress of the game in the region which led to the following countries reaching the finals of the Fifa World Cup: Kuwait (1982), Iraq (1986) UAE (1990) Saudi Arabia (1994, '98, 2002 and 2006). The Gulf Cup also was a big factor in Kuwait winning the Asian Cup in 1980, Saudi Arabia in 1984, 1988 and 1996 when they defeated the UAE by penalty shoot outs.
The event has helped greatly to increase the popularity of the game in the region, and helped to increase the modern facilities, stadiums, telecommunication and TV broadcasting in addition to the revolution in sports marketing in the area.
The tournament also helped in bringing the best football coaches to the area to lead the teams in the competition. Briton Don Revie, Brazilians Mario Zagalo and Carlos Alberto, Ukrainian Valery Lobanoveski, Brazilian Tele Santana, Briton Roy Hodgson and others are only a few of the big names who worked to improve the game in the Gulf.
