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Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is known for its striking tourist attractions and exotic living. Year in year out, millions of people pour into the city to have a taste of its pleasures.
The scintillating city has not traditionally been known as a football hotspot, despite the popularity of the UAE Pro League, the country’s top professional football league.
While the spotlight has solely been on the beauty of the city, its ultramodern architecture, and lively nightlife scene, there is a bourgeoning football culture shaping up, with several academies being set up – among them the Alliance Football Club.
How Alliance Football Club is changing the narrative of football in Dubai
Alliance Football Club is not just a football club, but a second home for young boys and girls. They provide a safe and nurturing environment where these young individuals grow, learn, and thrive.
As part of my quest to find out how Dubai is quickly becoming a major hub for football in the Middle East, I caught up with Nuno Samarra.
Samarra is the Chief Operating Officer of Alliance Football Club. He is also a UEFA B License coach with international experience as a head coach from youth teams to senior teams, and technical director for Sporting Clube de Portugal Academies in Portugal.
Nuno Samarra spoke extensively on the inception of the football club, some of the challenges they’ve faced and how the government has been supportive.
“Alliance Football Club has been here for the last 10 years, so it’s a known brand. It’s more than just football because when you think about football worldwide, not only in Dubai, you have a low percentage of players that actually play on the youth academies and eventually become professionals. I think probably the percentage is less than 1%.
“Here, it’s more than just football because we have a more holistic approach, a more comprehensive approach, where we try to develop through football. We try to develop skills, educating the kids to have a broader knowledge about life, about how hard work and resilience are going to be crucial elements when you grow up as an adult, regardless of if you become a football player or not.”
He added: “When you think about the UAE and you think about Dubai specifically, we need to take into consideration that we have more than 250 academies. Only in Dubai. That means that competition is very different than you have probably anywhere else in the world. The competition here is massive.
“I am from Portugal, where we develop a lot of very good players, maybe some of the best in the world. But that does not mean that I hold the truth. And if you go to other academies – Barcelona academy, Manchester City academy, Liverpool academy, Real Madrid academy, all of them – they will think, ‘oh, but I’m the best because I am from the best club in the world’. Again, it’s more than football, it’s more than methodology. You need to think that the competition is so great that you need to develop and differentiate on the human side as well.”
He praised the infrastructure and support provided by the UAE authorities.
“I think we need to realize that the UAE government and especially Dubai Sports Council have already developed a lot of facilities that allow us to perform in different environments and conditions that other clubs or other countries cannot support their clubs with. I think we need to appreciate that. The second side of it is the competitions. The competitions here are developed in a way that if you want to pursue a more professional path and you want to go to national competitions, you have that possibility.”
Igor Jesus: A role model for Dubai’s football dreamers
More tournaments are now being hosted in Dubai, and these competitions have been very influential in the development of players across the city. One player who stands tall is the new Premier League player, Igor Jesus.
Igor spent his formative years in Dubai, a secret hard to believe.
The Brazilian began his playing career at Curitiba, where he made his first team debut at the age of 18.
In 2020, Igor joined UAE side Shabab Al Ahli, where he netted an impressive 43 goals and provided 20 assists in 88 appearances across all competitions. He was the shining light and the next big talent to emerge from the UAE.
He returned to his homeland to join Botafogo in 2024 after four years in the UAE to continue his growth. His domestic form earned him his first international call-up as he was selected for Brazil’s World Cup Qualification games in October and November.
He has since signed a long-term deal with Nottingham Forest, much to the pride of Nuno Samarra, who spoke warmly about the 24-year-old.
“We had just this week a Brazilian player (Igor Jesus). He’s not even a UAE national player, but that player just signed for a Premier League club. And he was here – you know the space that I told you about? – he was here between the ages of 18-19 to 21-22. Those years are very important for the professional; the development of a professional player. And he was here within those 3-4 years.
“That means that the UAE had a very significant impact on his career. And then eventually, he went back to Brazil. Now he’s in the Premier League. This is a story that needs to be published around UAE local clubs and academies, because this can be the story that will feed the dream of the 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 kids that we have here participating in football.
“This can be the story that we can sell and say, look, it’s possible and the talent is here. Now we just need to follow all the other elements, the hard work, the resilience needed to navigate life as a football player.
“I think that we need to promote those stories a little bit better for people and kids to understand that it’s possible.”
A Bright Future for Football in Dubai
As the famous Colin R. Davis once said, the road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same. Not every child’s dream of becoming a professional player will come true, but with hard work and dedication, many players in the UAE could follow in Igor Jesus’s footsteps and emerge as global superstars in the years to come.
Dubai is indeed making a name for itself in football and changing lives.
Joseph Agbobli
