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The UAE League jumps to the 5th Asian position

 

The UAE League has jumped from 7th place with 543.4 points gained last year to 5th position with 645.3 points with a difference of 101.9 points during the last Asian evaluation early last October. This outcome gives the UAE League the right to keep its three and a half seats in the Asia Champions League, although that 645.3 points, would have qualified them directly to have 4 seats in the Asian Champions League had not for the failure in both fans attendance and technical criteria.

The UAE League gained 5th  position behind Japan, South Korea, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia after achieving great success in 9 criteria in terms of organization, management, marketing, commercial plans, matches management, media, playgrounds, clubs, infrastructure and logistics.

According to the new conception, Al Jazira, Bani Yas and Al Nasr will participate directly in the AFC Champions League this season, while Al Shabab will compete for half a seat in the preliminary round to win the fourth berth. The AFC also gave Al Wahda and Al Wasl, who finished 5th and 6th in the Etisalat Pro-League respectively, the opportunity to take part in the AFC Cup.

The Executive bureau meeting was held at the end of the AFC committees meetings which were concluded on Wednesday, followed by organizing a ceremony for honoring the best Asian athletes for the year 2011 where the Uzbek Server Dejaparov won the trophy of the best player in the continent,

 Japanese Aya Miyama was the best for the women's category while the Japanese team were selected the best national team in Asia in both male and female categories. The Qatari Club Al Sadd have bagged the best Asian Club of the Year. Japanese player Hideki Aichiqi and female Australian player Caitlin Ford have received the awards for the best male and female players in Asia for this year in the youth category. The Uzbek referee Rafsha Armatov has won the award of the best Asian referee for this year, while the Korean girl Cha Sung-mi has won the award of the best referee in Asia for this year.

On the other hand, the executive management of the Pro-League Committee expressed its happiness over the new results of the Asian evaluation to the UAE League, noting that the 12 professional clubs have worked hard during the period of evaluation to meet all the requirements.

The Pro-League Committee extended its gratitude to all professional clubs’ officials, in addition to all officials and workers in the UAE Football Association as well as the Professional Committee for the efforts they have exerted during the AFC delegation's last visit paid in early October.

The results of the UAE in the criteria came as follows: the organization criterion 46.6 points out of 50 points, technical 26.9 out of 100 (National Teams Rating and the participation of the clubs in the Asian Champions League)  , the fans 42.8 out of 100, matches management 100 out of 100, marketing and advertising 50 of the 50, commercial performance and investment 81.5 of 100, matches management 50 out of 50, Media 50 out of 50, playgrounds 47.5 out of 50, the clubs100 out of 100, infrastructure and logistics 50 out of 50.

It is worth mentioning that if the attendance and technical criteria were the same that of the third place, the UAE ranking would have jumped to that position behind Japan and Korea. And if UAE gained 33 points for each of the attendance and technical criteria , it would have jumped  to second place behind Japan, which means that the second and third places were just around the corner had not for the significant impact of the attendance and technical criteria.

According to the outcomes of the evaluation, a proposal was put before the attending professional committees for West Asia and was endorsed by Executive Office, where Qatar get, 4 seats, Saudi Arabia and UAE, 3.5 seats each, while Uzbekistan get two and a half seat in the East and one seat in the West, with Iran getting two seats in the AFC Champions League, and two other seats in the deciding match.