Dubai: President of the UAE Football Association (UAE FA) Marwan Bin Galita welcomed Tuesday’s guidelines to implement from September a decree allowing expatriates to compete in official UAE sports competitions, and encouraged local clubs to take action.
Players born to Emirati women with expatriate husbands, those holding UAE passports, those born in the UAE and also players residing in the UAE can now take part in local sport by the issuance of last November’s decree by President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
Major-General Mohammad Khalfan Al Rumaithi, president of the UAE General Authority for Youth and Sports Welfare, announced the guidelines on Tuesday.
Rugby, cricket and ice hockey have long been expatriate driven here, but it is basketball, volleyball, handball, individual sports and the sports for people of determination and most notably football — the national sport — where this is most likely to have an impact.
“Adoption and implementation of these regulations will draw up a new policy in the UAE sports system and will change many rules that have been rigid without development for many years,” tweeted Bin Galita.
“The containment and utilisation of sporting talent that exists among us will further exacerbate the competition. As I see it, clubs have to seriously think about investing in them and making use of them in local and foreign engagements.”
Coaches of local — predominantly expatriate — academies like Chris Brown of ‘It’s Just Football’ welcomed the move to start integrating players into local clubs from September.
“For me it’s been a long time coming, and I think it’s fantastic for football,” he said. “There’s an abundance of talent here that’s not been able to play at a standard that continues their development.
“If you’re good enough, you need to be in a system that trains full time from the age of 12 and expatriate kids living here don’t currently have that opportunity.”
Brown explained that in the current situation, promising expatriate players had to move abroad.
“That’s a big commitment if you believe your child might be good enough at 12 to then move your whole family. No one can guarantee at 12 or 14 that they are going to be professional because so many variables can happen in between then.”
Tim March, formerly of Sharjah Football Club, who has been involved in local youth football here for 17 years, said this would keep families together.
“At 12 years of age if they have an option to pursue something here with their family rather than moving abroad, my view is that most families would prefer that,” he said.
Carol Geldenhuys, the British-born South African mother of Kieran, who had to leave his parents to move to England to sign for Notts County in 2012 at the age of 16, said their experience was heartbreaking.
“If he had the opportunity to have stayed here, I would have definitely considered it,” she said.
“It was heartbreaking to let him go at such a young age and it was stressful commuting between here and the UK on a regular basis. Thankfully, we only had one child because if I had more than one, we probably wouldn’t have been able to let him go.
“Overseas exposure is great but not everyone can do it. We were also fortunate he had a British passport but this decision will really affect those who can’t travel and stay abroad as freely.”
March added: “It’s also positive from the perspective of clubs being able to grow beyond their existing catchment areas to be as clubs should be — diverse hubs for the full community.
“Clubs here have huge issues trying to build their fan base and get into the communities to grow connectivity. If they can really go for the accessible, inclusivity route and communicate with everybody, that would give them a platform to launch a sustainable, profitable model.”
It has not been made expressly clear if allowing expatriates at the club level will eventually mean they can play for the UAE national team, but Brown says such an occurrence would benefit everyone.
“The last time the UAE got to a World Cup was 1990 and that’s obviously what they are trying to do. Anything that’s going to help them, they should do. That’s got to be the end goal if you are talking about success. You’ll just go around in circles if 85 per cent of the population can’t have an opportunity. Everyone will benefit if the UAE makes it to a World Cup.”
How it will work
Football clubs can field as many players between the age of four and 18 years (born to Emirati women or holding a UAE passport) as they want in their age group teams. They can also register three players born in the UAE or residing in the country at youth or first team level. The same applies for basketball, volleyball and handball, where the only exception is that 10 players of UAE-born and residents can register. Individual sports, sports for people of determination, rugby, hockey and ice hockey have no registration limit.
‘It’s great news for expat families and children’
“This will definitely encourage them to take the game seriously,” said the Lebanese expatriate who has been living in Dubai for 12 years. She said this would attract more expatriate children to sports and games. As many parents want their children to do physical activities for better health, it will in turn help build a healthy generation. The opportunity to represent the UAE in international sporting events will definitely be a big boost to expatriate children, Khalil said.
— Binsal Abdul Kader, Senior Reporter; Samihah Zaman and N.D. Prashant, Staff Reporters
