Al Maarifa retain last year’s duFC form

The second week of group stages of du Football Champions, in partnership with LaLiga, and home of the official UAE Schools and Streets Cups, concluded successfully last weekend, ahead of the knock-out round.

With a mixture of new and returning teams from public and private schools, the play was intense with 69 games during which players netted 354 goals. Teams were eager to showcase their best performance, vying for a chance to advance to the next round and increase their chances to get discovered.

Returning Champions Al Maarifa Private School once again showed themselves to be favorites to reach the final stages of the year-long championship as they made quick work of 6-0 against Sharjah India International school defeating them 6-0, and 8-1 against New Indian Model School.

LaLiga scouts surveyed the packed pitches in search of top talent to join the world-class du LaLiga High Performance Centre (HPC), which provides them with rigorous year-round training and a pathway to professional football careers.

Hussein Murad, CEO of Inspiratus Sports Experience, organizers of the du Football Champions said: “We are witnessing great play at du Football Champions, home of the official UAE Schools and Streets Cups, in its fifth season. Through our partnership with du, LaLiga and the sports and educational authorities, du Football Champions has been at the heart of providing youth with a steppingstone to hone their talents and prepare them for future football careers.

“We invite all the schools and young players to join du Football Champions and take part in a world-class tournament, where they can showcase their best skills at the and get scouted by professional clubs.”

du Football Champions is a nationwide initiative featuring the UAE’s official schools Cup and Streets Cup and is the only international youth football scouting platform.”

Played to world-class standards, the Cups are conducted at a national level and played in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and the Northern Emirates.

Meanwhile, the UAE Pro League participated in the annual meeting of the World Leagues Forum hosted by Moroccan “Ligue Nationale de Football Professionnel” in Marrakech on Nov.15 with 34 professional football leagues attending.

This participation is the UAEPL’s first involvement in the WLF’s meetings after announcing it has joined the organization in October. Representing the UAE PL in the meeting was Support Services Manager Musaab Al Marzooqi.

The meeting which lasted two days saw Enrique Bonilla, Executive President of Liga MX (Mexico) as new WLF Chairman, replacing the outgoing Christian Seifert of Germany’s DFL.

The Leagues welcomed the recent agreement between the WLF and FIFA on the development of professional football by which the leagues and FIFA will work together to improve governance structures and standards in professional football worldwide.

The Leagues reiterated the need to regulate agents and their full support to the reform recently adopted by the FIFA Council including a license and a cap on fees.

Leagues also discussed the future Club World Cup which will be held in 2021 in China. They will make proposals directly to FIFA on the redistribution model in order to not jeopardize competitive balance at domestic level and to emphasize solidarity.

Finally, the leagues expressed their concerns on racism in football. They decided to set up a Leagues’ “Task Force Against Racism” to collect data across their members, identify best practices and make recommendations.