LaLiga's partner project du Football Champions receives award in Dubai

The du Football Champions project, which LaLiga collaborates on in the United Arab Emirates, was awarded a five-star rating by the Dubai government and Dubai Sports Council at an event held in Dubai. The award itself, which was given out by the Crown Prince of Dubai, Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, was received by Osman Sultan, the CEO of du, Hussein Murad, the CEO of Inspiratus Group, and Fernando Sanz, LaLiga's MENA office manager and director of international projects.

The Dubai Sports Council has created the Sports Events Ranking System to determine the number of stars that sporting events deserve, depending on the quality of management and organisation. There are five main categories which span event, economic, sports, social and brand development, both domestically and internationally.

Out of 4,000 sporting events held in Dubai throughout the 2015/16 season, the project that LaLiga supports was recognised as being on the same level as household names like the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships and golf's DP World Tour Championship.

The du Football Champions project was launched a year ago with the goal of giving budding young players from the UAE access to high-quality training at grassroots level. The initiative has proven a resounding success right from the outset and the two competitions rolled out as part of the programme, the UAE Schools Cup and UAE Streets Cup, attracted 12,000 boys and girls between them in their first year, with 500 teams competing in each. The winners of the inaugural edition of these tournaments had the chance to enjoy a trip to Spain, where they trained with LaLiga coaches and played matches against youth teams from LaLiga clubs.

Besides nurturing young players' potential, these cups aim to foster essential values such as sportsmanship, leadership, commitment, fair play and teamwork. LaLiga and du Football Champions also teamed up to open the first High Performance Centre in Dubai, which provides a platform for talented youngsters to train in top-class facilities and embark on a professional career in sport.

The second season of the du Football Champions project looks set to be just as successful, with more than 5,000 children already signed up to take part.