The National Food Products Company (NFPC) has set up a multi-purpose sports complex in Sharjah. The facility, with an investment of nearly Dhs. 100,000, is located in the residential complex for its employees, adjacent to the Emirates Highway in the Sharjah Industrial area.

"We will be staging various tournaments in this sports complex and promote the diverse sports activities in the UAE at the grass roots level. Though we have set up the complex for the staff, we will offer our facilities for inter companies sports activities, inter-school and inter-college sports programmes," remarked Clifford Mendonsa, the NFPC Sports and Leisure Club Co-ordinator to the Gulf News.

The first tournament at the complex commences with a five-a-side rink hockey event tomorrow. "We have a good hockey team which has won many tournaments and so we wanted to start off with a hockey event.

This is only a beginning. We will conduct volleyball, badminton, basketball, chess, darts and even carrom events soon," added Mendonsa while showing the various halls allotted for the sports.

"The badminton court has floodlight facilities. We have got the Ketttler tables from Germany costing Dhs. 700 each for Table Tennis. We also got eight chess and carrom boards and even two dart boards.

"Raul Fernandez of the Dubai Darts League has promised to send two experienced players to train our staff here. "Our hockey team is also being trained by our team manager Javis Ahmed. We want to provide them with facilities for training comfortably," he said.

A committee of 14 members will oversee the activities of the complex. The complex has also a highly-sophisticated gymnasium with all modern amenities. "We have spend nearly Dhs. 65,000 for all the equipments," revealed Mendonsa.

"We have been selecting good sportsmen from various fields and have been training them up. We are now aiming to expand our activities to outdoor too and set up a cricket ground. We will be approaching the municipality for a ground.

"However, right now we are aiming to use our facilities at the complex to stage school and college tournaments. The NFPC management has been very supportive and we hope to encourage the different sports in the UAE soon," he concluded.