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Dubai Sports City
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Dubai Sports City
With the importance of the Dubai
Tennis Championship on the annual international
tennis calendar, the city is looking to increase
its sporting profile, which up until recently
has been seen as being some way short of what
a city of Dubai’s international profile could
expect. Aside from the tennis championship,
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Dubai is home to a major horse race,
the Dubai World Cup, as well as the Desert Classic
golf tournament. It also plays host to numerous cricket
matches between India and Pakistan due to the highly
politicized nature of the relationship between the
two countries, which makes it hugely difficult for
either nation to safely host the games – which the
global cricket community nonetheless sees as hugely
important due to the popularity of cricket in both
places.
 Dubai Sports City is an attempt by the city authorities to take a step
forward for Dubai as a major international sporting
hub. Currently under construction and set to open
in 2011, it will contain residential properties as
well as its sporting facilities – hence the title
“Sports City”. The master developer, Dubai Properties,
hopes that the facility will rival any similar venue
anywhere throughout the world, although this status
will require the venue to overcome some hurdles. This
is Dubai, though, and even the hurdles which would
leave many nations grasping in the wind will appear
much more manageable thanks to the city’s eternal
ambition. The list of sporting complexes planned for
Dubai Sports City certainly offer
an insight as to what we can expect when it is up
and running.
The main structure within Dubai Sports
City is to be a 60,000 seat multi-purpose outdoor
stadium. The sports likely to take place there include
athletics, soccer, rugby union (it may well play host
to the Dubai leg of the international RBS Sevens tournament
– where reduced sides of seven men per team play a
faster, shorter and higher-scoring version of the
popular sport) and potentially the larger cricket
internationals. It will also however contain a dedicated
25,000 seat cricket ground, where the United Arab
Emirates national cricket team may play their home
games. The UAE cricket side has as yet only competed
in one World Cup, in 1996 when they finished fifth
in their six-team pool, the high point being an encouraging
victory over the Netherlands.
In addition to these grounds there will
be a 10,000 seat indoor area for multi-purpose use
and a 5,000 seat field hockey stadium, as well as
an 18-hole golf course designed by successful PGA
golf veteran Ernie Els. Given the complex political
situation in Pakistan currently preventing numerous
national sporting associations from giving their blessing
to their teams visiting the country, Dubai may well
find itself in the position of hosting what would
be considered “home” games for the Pakistan national
team – especially in cricket, with the Pakistan Cricket
Board having recently inked a three-year deal to play
games there. A bid for Dubai to host the 2016 Olympics
was however shelved when the parties failed to agree
on a way to overcome the problem of Dubai’s incredibly
hot summers, which fall at a time when the Olympics
are usually in full swing.
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