World Footy News

For the second successive year a Dubai Heat team has won the Dubai 9s tournament. Dubai's two football clubs, the Dingoes and the Heat supplied two teams each for this year’s event, with Dubai Heat Black the overall winners. Eight teams participated in what the Dingoes’ Philip Temple described as “a bigger and better tournament than last year.”

The event began on Wednesday evening with a Gala dinner sponsored by Yalumba at the Le Meriden Dubai. This allowed team officials, sponsors and event organisers to discuss their plans for football in the Middle East. WFN is pleased to announce that several clubs have expressed interest in being part of a Middle East League next winter. A follow-up meeting to further discuss details will be held in the coming weeks.

The matches themselves were played two days later. Kick off was at 9.30 am and there were several close encounters, including a draw between debutants the Dubai Dragons and the Abu Dhabi Falcons. By early afternoon, qualifying matches were complete and the teams were ranked and then split into two divisions. An Auskick session was held prior to the tournament finals, which allowed the teams to break for lunch.

When play resumed, in Division One Dubai Heat Black defeated the Muscat Magpies. They then played the Dingoes in the final, who had earlier defeated Heat Blue. Heat Black was victorious by 16 points, winning their second Championship in as many years.

Division One Final: The Dingoes and the Heat listen to the national anthem

In Division Two, the Doha Kangaroos defeated the Abu Dhabi Dockers in the first Semi Final. The second Semi Final was won by SMATS Swans over the Dubai Dragons. When the two winners faced off, Doha won convincingly. The Kangaroo's prize, the Dubai 9s Bowl, is the club's first piece of silverwear. The win also helped take away some of the pain from Doha's narrow loss in their Semi Final at the 2007 tournament. They could be found partying hard at Dubliners after the victory.

The Dubai 9s was Abu Dhabi's first tournament

The 2008 Dubai 9s was hosted by the Dubai Dingoes and supported by SMATS Group. Philip Temple thanked on behalf of the Dingoes, "Brian Clarke from Aussie Rules UK who dropped in for the day on his way back to London and Terry Martin our local UAE umpire who both did a fantastic job umpiring back to back games throughout the day." Temple also thanked "all teams for participating in this years event, your commitment to the tournament is greatly appreciated...and to all the other people who helped support the event, thank you very much."