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Dubai: The UAE Professional Clubs met the officials of the Professional League Association (PLA) and discussed matters related to the kick-off of the first professional league to be held in the UAE next September.
Hamad Bin Brook, the PLA President chaired the meeting with Mohammad Al Mahmoud, along with the vice president and members of the PLA.
All the twelve clubs that will play in the first professional league such as Al Shabab, Al Jazira, Al Ahli, Sharjah, Al Shaab, Al Ain, Al Wasl, Al Wahda, Al Nasr, Al Dhafra, Al Khaleej and Ajman were present.
These clubs agreed to take part in the four tournaments which will be organised by the PLA during the season 2008-2009, which is scheduled to be held from September 14 till the end of May 2009.
The four tournaments are: The Super Cup, in which the league champions Al Shabab will meet the President's Cup champions Al Ahli at a neutral ground in Dubai on September 14.
This will be followed by the professional league in which the 12 participating clubs will be played on a home and away basis in 22 stages (132 matches).
The professional league matches will be played on Friday (four matches) and Saturday (two matches). Each team will be allowed to register 25 Emirati players including three foreigners.
The third tournament will be the Professional Clubs Cup. The 12 clubs will be divided into three groups each with four teams.
They play a home and away league and the top teams from each group will play the second best team to qualify for the semifinals that will be played in a knock out system on a home and away basis.
The fourth tournament for the 12 professional clubs will be the Challenge League for the under-21 y players.
Each team can register 20 players with two foreigners aged under-23. These two players can play with the senior team in the professional league. This means that any club can have five foreign players, who will play with the senior team, provided those three foreigners play in the match.
The meeting discussed at length over the foreign players inclusion.
The PLA suggested that three foreign players must be included in the senior team and three in the under 21 Challenge league.
However, the clubs finally agreed that three players will be signed up for the senior team and two for the under 21. The foreign players who were registered for the under 21 can play at any time with the senior team.
The meeting rejected a suggestion by the PLA to allow clubs to sign foreign goalkeepers. Only Al Wahda Club backed the suggestion while the other 11 clubs rejected it due to the fact that they have good goalkeepers. They said they need to sign up strikers and midfielders than a foreign goalkeeper.
Al Wahda is handicapped by the absence of a good goalkeepers. They had signed up many Emirati goalkeepers, but none of them satisfied the club officials or achieved success.
They used to play in the Asian Champions League till last year with Nadir Limyagri, a foreign goalkeeper from Morocco.
The professional clubs agreed with the PLA to provide visiting team supporters a ten percent reduction for match ticket during the coming season tournaments.
They will also be provided a regular place inside the stadium. The ticket are priced at Dh20 for the professional club matches.
The 12 clubs with the PLA discussed held closed door discussions with regard to the marketing and television rights offers for the new season's four tournaments such as Super Cup, League, Challenge League and Professional Clubs Cup.
Many sport channels in the region are biding to win the rights of the UAE league and the other three tournaments.
The PLA will get a percentage from marketing of the television rights (not less than 15%), while the lions share will be distributed among the 12 clubs.
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