Sportblog | The Guardian — United Arab Emirates RSS

Qatar, Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia have different visions of future in football with aims and models not interchangeableIt’s an exhilarating time to be a Manchester City fan, though I am muting my optimism with a selection of the most miserabilist chants ever heard in a football stadium. “We’re not really here”; “Empty seats at home”; and “Spent all my money on drugs and City”. City’s rise has been so rapid that the fans are still very Mancunian, and perhaps less familiar than followers of other big teams. Yet they resemble other fans in their obsessive scrutiny of every aspect of the team, from the pitch, to the training field, to the corporate decisions. The idea that City fans ignore...

Tribal loyalty has been taken too far when supporters pontificate on an area that has nothing to do with football as if they are debating an offside decisionIt seems an odd detail now but the first person to find oil in Abu Dhabi was the deep sea explorer Jacques Cousteau, who was employed by a British-run expedition to look for telltale signs in the ocean floor. Modern-day oil prospecting involves satellite imaging and infrared. Back in the 1950s the state of the art was a broodingly handsome celebrity diver in a pair of Speedos.It worked, though. In those days the Persian gulf was a coral paradise, home to a booming pearl diving trade. You wonder if, down in the glitter...