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Empire Sports Academy (ESA) in Dubai coaches boys and girls to play better football. The Academy aims to identify, nurture and develop talented footballers. The academy also aims to provide students with the best possible football experience and to coach them from an early age to help them reach their full potential.
Virgin Mobile is partnering with ESA to help it take its mission even further. Here’s what ESA Academy Director Adam Felix has to say about the partnership, his work, and what football means for the region.
Adam, tell us about Empire Sports Academy
We are one of the leading football academies in the UAE. We coach boys and girls from age four all the way to the age of 18. We expose our students to local and international tournaments. Our main focus is to enable children to play football for enjoyment, become professionals, and develop their careers.
We’re now entering our 5th year of operations. We started with just 5 or 6 players and today have more than 1,000 boys and girls learning to play football with us. We’re currently the academy with the largest participation of girls in the region – with around 150 girls. We made history by fielding an all-girls team in the Youth Football League, the biggest league in the country.
Your work with girls’ football sounds very interesting
Of course. We have the largest program for girls in the country. The sport for girls is growing at a rapid rate all around the world. We are proud to be frontrunners and continue to lead the way in terms of the game for girls. We have girls who are 4 years old all the way up to 16-year-olds playing 2-3 times a week in local and international tournaments. Our intention is to continue building that program alongside our boys’ program to ensure that we are the frontrunners in the sport. With the growth of women’s football and the development of games across the world, we really are seeing increased participation in the sport.
What are your thoughts on football in the region?
This season has been really special. ESA travelled to Qatar with some of our students and their families and had a fantastic time there. We saw Morocco and Saudi Arabia performing stunningly well. It’s not an overnight success. I think it’s evident that youth and development programmes in these countries have contributed massively to this triumph. I think with the infrastructure and the development programs we have here, it won’t be long before teams from UAE start performing at that level.
I hope more international football comes to this region again soon!
The future looks very bright…
Indeed. I think for the global game as well as for us locally, the future is very bright. We’re fortunate enough to have partnered with six fantastic schools (Repton School Al Barsha, Repton School Dubai, Jebel Ali School, Safa Community School, South View School, and German International School) in Dubai. We’re working with students as young as three all the way up to the secondary level. The talent we have is incredible.
I think with Virgin Mobile’s partnership, and our hard work, it won’t be long before we produce some world-class football stars right here in the UAE.
As a part of Virgin Group’s purpose of ‘Changing Business for Good’, we’re committed to supporting initiatives such as ESA, to help better our communities through developing grassroots sports.
If you’re keen to learn more about Empire Sports Academy, please visit their website .
