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Abu Dhabi Amateur Football league launched

ABU DHABI - The first official amateur football league in Abu Dhabi for men, women, corporate and juniors under 12 and 14 is set to kick-off on 10 January, 2011, at The Dome on Airport Road, a press release said.

Sanctioned by the UAE Football Association and organised by Reem Investments and MEDIAPRO Middle East, the ADFL will prove an ideal competition platform for local talent to compete. The amateur men and women divisions will compete for total prize money of AED 50,000 and the top teams will automatically qualify for the UAE Football League finals in May, also hosted in Abu Dhabi.

Bernhard Schumm, technical director representing the UAE Football Association and part of the organising committee of the ADFL commented positively “we are happy to get this project off the ground as we are constantly looking to expand the competition platforms for all talents in the UAE. The league is a great initiative which will go hand in hand with the development strategy of the FA.

“All players will be registered with the UAE FA to ensure that only amateur players will participate and secondly, we are encouraging the local clubs to send their teams to participate. The league will not be in competition with the UAE FA league schedules as most matches are played on different pitch sizes and during the week while the local leagues are usually hosted on weekends.”

Connie Selby, the current coach of the UAE national women’s team, is excited about the prospects of a league. “Finally, we have a regular competition in Abu Dhabi for our female players to compete and on behalf of the national team players, we would like to congratulate the organisers to put such an initiative forward. We have many female players interested to play football in the country but there is not enough opportunity to compete. As a national coach I need to have regular competitions to seek new talents and to have our regular players being challenged throughout the year,” Selby said.