dirtyleeds

I want to attend a live football match in dubai. Does anyone have any experience of this? Specifically, do I need to get tickets in advancen where's best to find confirmed matches and kick off times (in english!), is it safe enough, is it recommeded for my wife?

Blue Cat

Hello and welcome to BE, never been to a football match here but I am pretty sure it will be safe.

Cypselos

http://www.uaefa.ae/en/game_results.php

Stick the dates you're here in the search, and choose Etisalat Pro League for the competition, which gives you a slim chance of seeing a decent game.

Miss Anne Thrope

This thread may be helpful..read down through it

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=782613

dubaiguy2011

The Etisalat Pro league is comfortably the worst football league in the World, closely followed by the KSA league and Qatar Stars League.

If you want to watch some decent live football, I would recommend going to watch a Division 1 game in the Dubai Amateur Football League - league matches are played Sunday through Wednesday from around 20:00 - 20:45 kick off out at the Sevens on Al Ain Road. Rest assured the quality will be 85,000 times better, it's free to get in, easy to park, and you can get a beer.

scot47

Do they have mixed crowds in UAE ? In KSA it is strictly MEN ONLY !

dubaiguy2011

Yes, but not many.

Miss Anne Thrope

Total bollocks. And you are clearly not neutral on this. Agreed it's way below the standard of professional leagues in Europe but that's football in the developing world. It's better than more well known leagues, for example, in China and several African countries.

co durham boy

I crossed the road from my villa last week to see one of the worlds greatest ever players train .

'Raul' Gonzalez Blanco is playing for Al Saad here and a few of us went over and watched them train . He came over signed a few shirts and stuff and had a chat and took the time out whilst running rings round a few clueless Arab footballers .

A quite surreal Qatar moment , which believe me are very few and far between

The standard is not too bad , disciplines poor with set pieces and defending the main culprits but there's a decent crop of talented players scattered througout the league

dubaiguy2011

I'm not neutral because I play football and unless you're a total fvcktard then you wouldn't be arguing the point. Given that many players in the Gulf leagues are actually nationalised Africans (to get around the restrictions on foreign players) it kind of goes against what you're saying. I also used to work with one of the biggest clubs in the UAE which I suspect gives me more experience than some armchair pundit like you.

Without using Google, name one GCC born player playing in a decent league? And I'll give you one - the Goalie for Wigan from Oman.

co durham boy

What about Mohammed Van Persie ?

dubaiguy2011

Rashid Giggs?

co durham boy

Abdullah Bin Vidic ?

dubaiguy2011

Gaber Agbonlahor

Miss Anne Thrope

Ali al Habsi is the only GCC national playing in a major league in Europe - that's a well known fact. They had hopes for Ismail Mattar a few years ago but nothing came of it. But I would say that this fact, plus the presence of naturalised Africans (though they are mainly in Qatar) and some international quality foreign players supports the point that the UAE league is not "comfortably the worst football league in the World". That's because it has enough money to retain players who would otherwise play abroad, particularly in leagues in North Africa and SE Asia.

You can call me any names you like but it doesn't support your silly hyperbole. You don't have to resort to obviously ridiculous put-downs of other leagues in order to encourage people to come and see your amateur league matches. You could have easily ommitted the first and last sentences of your original post and made your point far more credibly and effectively.