Yousuf Al Serkal last month received an overwhelming mandate for a second stint as the UAE Football Association’s new president. Al Serkal, who has also held many other positions such as executive member, general secretary, vice-president and interim president, comfortably beat Abdullah Hareb in a vote to decide who should lead the country’s football governing body into a new era.
And with the UAE’s Under-23 team having qualified for this summer’s London Olympics and a new senior team manager to be found, as well as the task of continuing the growth of football in the Emirates, there are plenty of challenges awaiting Al Sarkal.
Gulf News caught up with him at his office at the UAE FA headquarters, where he described how he intends to turn the UAE into one of the top three teams in Asia, what he expects of the Olympics team and what he hopes his legacy will be.
Gulf News: This is your second stint as UAE FA president. How are things going to be different?
Yousuf Al Sarkal: It is definitely going to be different because one gets a chance to compare what I have done first as a member or as a general secretary and then as vice-president and as president.
The first part was a continuous process, but now my second period comes after a four-year break. And this break gave me a chance to see things from outside after being inside the FA for so many years. Now I have different views, ideas and ways of handling things.
When I took over last as president it was also after a break of three years and I had the same experience. In the Fifa rankings the UAE had crossed the 100 mark, but we managed to bring that down to 80. And now as I take over again as president, the UAE is tied 120, so I think we can take our team even lower than 80.
My target is to reach 60. To do that I have a plan — the first step is the formation of various committees and the second stage is the internal reorganisation of the house. Luckily we have the summer break now to also look into the reorganising of the competitions and the national teams, starting from grassroots to the senior team. There are many fears that we have to attack and this will be interesting. There is work to be done.
Do you feel the next four years will be enough for you?
I myself at this point don’t look for more than four years. I don’t have an intention to continue beyond my time at this point. But I want to try and create a structure and a system where the FA will work like an establishment that should not be affected by a change in management. We want to have a certain system so that there is continuity in the functioning of the FA, whoever comes after me.
Do you feel football in the UAE is heading in the right direction?
I believe it is going towards a proper direction, but not yet in the right direction. When I left we were in the amateur era and now we are in the professional period. But this is just the beginning. There are a lot of things to be corrected.
We have been working on a trial and error basis and I don’t think we have a set of steady guidelines that shows us the direction we should be headed. This cannot be done only by the FA or in the next four years. What I have in mind is to create a relationship between the FA and the clubs in the UAE. And for this we need to have a specific and direct contact with all the clubs.
We do have contact with the clubs, but that is for mundane things like registration of players, competitions, etc. We don’t have anybody who looks after the goals and future projections of the work with clubs. I believe we need to set common goals between us and the clubs and we need to go about achieving these. I believe we can minimise the period of time that we need to achieve pure professionalism. So instead of ten years we can achieve this in five years.
Where do you want UAE football to be?
In Asia, I want our football to be among the top three countries. Why are countries like Japan, South Korea, Iran and Saudi Arabia always at the top? I want to be with them in the same fold. We have the capability of being there. I am not saying we have to be number one, but we have to be among the first three or four.
And the Olympic team has proved that such a thing is possible?
Yes, it is possible. Not just by the Olympic team, but also by the senior team. We used to be ranked among the leading countries in Asia. Why don’t we go back to the same? This is my first ambition for the UAE.
What will have to be done to achieve this goal?
There are short-term and long-term goals to achieve this. In the short-term we will have to — in the coming three years — build on this Olympic squad so that we have a good base. I think we will have a good senior team within the coming three years. But in the long-term we should prove to all and ourselves that the success of this Olympic team was not a coincidence.
It was not a matter of luck, but a result of hard work, dedication and planning by all concerned. We need to continue with the same planning that we’ve had and produce more and more players at the younger level.
What sort of expectations do you have for the Olympic squad at the 2012 London Olympics?
In the tournament itself, I don’t want to raise the expectation level too high because we will be playing among the top 16 teams in the world. We will need to be realistic about our chances in London.
In the Under-19 World Cup we participated in, we passed from stage one to the second stage and then we were knocked out. We have played three matches at a lower level and now in London we will be playing three matches at a much higher level, possibly against the same players that we played in the Under-19 World Cup.
So we should be very realistic. In addition, the opportunity of playing three over-age players in the team does not change too many things for a team like ours because all our players are at a level that is more or less same. But this is not the case with other top teams like Brazil or Argentina as their senior players can make a difference.
I don’t really expect a very good result. However, this does not mean that we will tell the players to take things easy. What we will be telling them is that we are not there to make up the numbers or there as tourists to London, but we are there to compete and win.
For me, what is more important at this stage is to see how this squad can shape and change the face of UAE football for the future because these are the players who will constitute the core of our senior team in the future.
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| Yousuf Al Serkal UAE FA president |
And with the UAE’s Under-23 team having qualified for this summer’s London Olympics and a new senior team manager to be found, as well as the task of continuing the growth of football in the Emirates, there are plenty of challenges awaiting Al Sarkal.
Gulf News caught up with him at his office at the UAE FA headquarters, where he described how he intends to turn the UAE into one of the top three teams in Asia, what he expects of the Olympics team and what he hopes his legacy will be.
Gulf News: This is your second stint as UAE FA president. How are things going to be different?
Yousuf Al Sarkal: It is definitely going to be different because one gets a chance to compare what I have done first as a member or as a general secretary and then as vice-president and as president.
The first part was a continuous process, but now my second period comes after a four-year break. And this break gave me a chance to see things from outside after being inside the FA for so many years. Now I have different views, ideas and ways of handling things.
When I took over last as president it was also after a break of three years and I had the same experience. In the Fifa rankings the UAE had crossed the 100 mark, but we managed to bring that down to 80. And now as I take over again as president, the UAE is tied 120, so I think we can take our team even lower than 80.
My target is to reach 60. To do that I have a plan — the first step is the formation of various committees and the second stage is the internal reorganisation of the house. Luckily we have the summer break now to also look into the reorganising of the competitions and the national teams, starting from grassroots to the senior team. There are many fears that we have to attack and this will be interesting. There is work to be done.
Do you feel the next four years will be enough for you?
I myself at this point don’t look for more than four years. I don’t have an intention to continue beyond my time at this point. But I want to try and create a structure and a system where the FA will work like an establishment that should not be affected by a change in management. We want to have a certain system so that there is continuity in the functioning of the FA, whoever comes after me.
Do you feel football in the UAE is heading in the right direction?
I believe it is going towards a proper direction, but not yet in the right direction. When I left we were in the amateur era and now we are in the professional period. But this is just the beginning. There are a lot of things to be corrected.
We have been working on a trial and error basis and I don’t think we have a set of steady guidelines that shows us the direction we should be headed. This cannot be done only by the FA or in the next four years. What I have in mind is to create a relationship between the FA and the clubs in the UAE. And for this we need to have a specific and direct contact with all the clubs.
We do have contact with the clubs, but that is for mundane things like registration of players, competitions, etc. We don’t have anybody who looks after the goals and future projections of the work with clubs. I believe we need to set common goals between us and the clubs and we need to go about achieving these. I believe we can minimise the period of time that we need to achieve pure professionalism. So instead of ten years we can achieve this in five years.
Where do you want UAE football to be?
In Asia, I want our football to be among the top three countries. Why are countries like Japan, South Korea, Iran and Saudi Arabia always at the top? I want to be with them in the same fold. We have the capability of being there. I am not saying we have to be number one, but we have to be among the first three or four.
And the Olympic team has proved that such a thing is possible?
Yes, it is possible. Not just by the Olympic team, but also by the senior team. We used to be ranked among the leading countries in Asia. Why don’t we go back to the same? This is my first ambition for the UAE.
What will have to be done to achieve this goal?
There are short-term and long-term goals to achieve this. In the short-term we will have to — in the coming three years — build on this Olympic squad so that we have a good base. I think we will have a good senior team within the coming three years. But in the long-term we should prove to all and ourselves that the success of this Olympic team was not a coincidence.
It was not a matter of luck, but a result of hard work, dedication and planning by all concerned. We need to continue with the same planning that we’ve had and produce more and more players at the younger level.
What sort of expectations do you have for the Olympic squad at the 2012 London Olympics?
In the tournament itself, I don’t want to raise the expectation level too high because we will be playing among the top 16 teams in the world. We will need to be realistic about our chances in London.
In the Under-19 World Cup we participated in, we passed from stage one to the second stage and then we were knocked out. We have played three matches at a lower level and now in London we will be playing three matches at a much higher level, possibly against the same players that we played in the Under-19 World Cup.
So we should be very realistic. In addition, the opportunity of playing three over-age players in the team does not change too many things for a team like ours because all our players are at a level that is more or less same. But this is not the case with other top teams like Brazil or Argentina as their senior players can make a difference.
I don’t really expect a very good result. However, this does not mean that we will tell the players to take things easy. What we will be telling them is that we are not there to make up the numbers or there as tourists to London, but we are there to compete and win.
For me, what is more important at this stage is to see how this squad can shape and change the face of UAE football for the future because these are the players who will constitute the core of our senior team in the future.
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